Heart of Ice

Hesitate

It was shocking. As the guards pulled her away and closed the doors again, she remained frozen in place, still trying to process what she had seen.

Jeonghan and Seungcheol, together the way that a man and a woman typically would be.

The guards began to tell her that she was not allowed to enter and that what was happening inside was strictly confidential; she knew that now. Still in a daze, she turned around and began to walk back to her room as she tried to absorb the image.

"Princess Yewon," she heard Seungcheol's breathless voice from behind her. She turned and saw that he looked jaded and flustered; his hair was a mess and his shirt loosely pulled over his head.

She didn't feel like speaking to him at all, and so she just kept walking, turning her back to him and trying to process the kind of relationship that she now knew her husband had with Jeonghan.

"Listen to me," he called out to her, following her as she walked forward and ignored him. "What you just saw..."

"I don't want to hear," she told him, shaking her head.

"Please keep it a secret," Seungcheol requested softly when there were no ears around to hear them. He looked sincere. "Please," he asked again. It was the first time Yewon had ever seen him so distraught.

She didn't answer him. She kept walking, and he followed her until she entered to her room, and he entered with her.

"Please?" he requested again, closing the door behind him.

Yewon still had not fully processed this. The Seungcheol that she saw in front of her who was sincerely asking for her confidentiality was not the Seungcheol she thought she knew. The Seungcheol she knew was cold, strong, upright, resolute and independent. This Seungcheol was not strong or upright; he was deviant and helpless, and for the first time, seemed to be in need of her cooperation.

"I don't understand," Yewon managed to say to him finally.

"I'm not going to deny what you saw," Seungcheol answered her. "What you saw is what it is."

"That's all you're going to say?"

"What else do you want me to say?" Seungcheol asked, a frown starting to appear on his face.

"You're married," Yewon told him.

"Did you expect loyalty?" Seungcheol snapped at her, "from the very beginning, I told you that our marriage is nothing but a political arrangement, princess. I never intended to stay loyal to you. I never intended to break the relations I already had."

"Of course you didn't," Yewon replied, looking to the floor and feeling slightly stupid for even thinking that there had ever been passion between them.

"Are you hurt?"

"What woman wouldn't be hurt by this?" she replied honestly. She had been hurt ever since he left her bed that night, but seeing Jeonghan and Seungcheol together like that made it so much more painful.

Seungcheol sighed and said: "I'm sorry you had to see it. It would have been easier if you didn't know. Especially since I still need to impregnate you, and it would be harder for you now that you find me revolting..."

'I still need to impregnate you.' Those words made her feel cold all of the sudden, like she was nothing but an object to him. It felt dehumanizing, and it chilled her to the bone to hear him say it like that.

"You did a good job of pretending there was passion yesterday night and the night before," Yewon noted.

"I figured it would be easier for you if there was the illusion of love, seeing that you read romance and all. But it wasn't easier for me," Seungcheol replied. "It's why I walked away. I couldn't bear being so fake."