Chapter Text
Wan knows the difference between real sleep and the thick, syrupy unconsciousness brought about by medication.
He’s suffered from insomnia since his high-school days. He’s not a stranger to sleeping pills. Not that long ago he was put under for surgery for the first time, and had the unique experience of waking up from anesthesia.
That is what he’s under, right now.
Darkness. A heavy, chemical fog. He tries to string thoughts together, but his brain is slow. There’s an ache in his chest, a burn in his eyes. Little by little his body wakes, and every bolt of awareness helps his addled mind piece the situation together.
He was…at the palace. He was waiting to meet the Prime Minister. Suddenly, a burst of noise and heat. An explosion. There was an explosion. He hit his head. He found himself on the floor, the heat of the flames licking at him, and there was—Seong Huiju.
The last thing he saw before the smoke and the pain in his head pulled him under. Her face, through the flames, her voice, calling his name—his real name, the name his mother gave him at birth. “Lee Wan! Lee Wan!”
The memory gives him the strength to force his eyelids open. His eyes burn, watering against the glare of the white lights. He tries to speak up, but his throat feels as though it’s coated in sand. Wan shifts his head against the pillow, his eyes straining as he looks around the room. The space beside his bed is empty.
Where is Seong Huiju?
His hand trembles as he reaches out, his fingers fumbling for the plastic nurse call button pinned to the sheets. He presses it down hard. There’s immediate movement at the door, but before a nurse or doctor can answer, a sudden ruckus erupts in the corridor outside. Heavy footsteps scramble against the linoleum. Voices slam against the door.
"Let me be the one to tell him!" It’s Hyeon’s voice, raw and frantic.
"This is official palace business—" a cold, authoritative voice cuts back. Min Jeongwoo.
The door bursts open.
The Prime Minister steps into the room, his aide forcing his way in right behind him.
Their clothes are the first thing he notices.
Stiff. Bleached. Rough, white hemp. The unmistakable, traditional mourning attire reserved strictly for a royal death.
"Hyeon," Wan gasps, the world suddenly tilting. "Where is my wife?" The word rips at his ruined throat, barely louder than a whisper.
The question hangs in the air. He had asked the exact same thing not even a month ago, standing in the palace dressing room as they got ready for their wedding. The smile he couldn't hide back then has transformed into a grimace he cannot control.
His chest tightens, a vice clamping down on his ribs. "Choi Hyeon!"
"Your Majesty..." Hyeon’s voice cracks. There are tears streaming down his pale face.
Prime Minister Min steps forward. His posture is unyielding, but for a fraction of a second, his jaw tightens. His hands, hidden beneath the wide sleeves of his mourning robes, ball into trembling fists. He looks down at Wan, his eyes blazing with a violent swell of grief.
Wan knows what he’s going to say before the words leave his lips. He recognizes in Min Jeongwoo’s face the devastation of a man who has just lost the woman he loves.
He realizes Min Jeongwoo’s feelings for his wife the moment before his world falls apart.
"Grand Princess Seong did not survive the fire," the Prime Minister states.
Every single molecule of oxygen instantly leaves the room for Wan.
Min Jeongwoo keeps talking. He explains that Wan is the designated Chief Mourner, that the entire nation is watching, that the state funeral office has been waiting for him to wake up so they can officially begin the nine-day ritual. Wan hears everything like he is trapped deep underwater. The words distort into a meaningless drone against his ears.
"Your majesty, you have to breathe," Hyeon cries, stepping closer to the bed. He grabs Wan's hand, but Wan can barely feel it. "Your Majesty, please. Hyung!"
It’s a name he hasn't been called in over a decade because his father had hated how close he became with the orphan boy left outside his doorstep. But protocol means nothing right now. Nothing means anything anymore. Choi Hyeon continues to call him hyung, while Wan feels like he is dying.
His lungs refuse to expand. The monitor beside his bed shrieks as his heart rate spikes but he barely registers it. Seong Huiju. It can’t be real. She can’t be…
Not Huiju too.
A horrible, animal wail rattles the bed, and it takes him a moment to realize that it’s coming from his throat. He can’t see through the tears. He can’t breathe through the sobs. He barely feels Hyeon’s hand between his own. A nurse finally rushes into the room past the Prime Minister, a syringe already prepared in her hand.
Whatever she injects into his IV line makes the heavy, dark fog return instantly, rushing in to swallow the pain. The white hemp clothes fade. Hyeon's face vanishes. Wan falls back into nothingness.
Reality is less kind to him the next time he wakes up.
He remembers the second he gains consciousness. His eyes fly open and Seong Huiju’s name is on his lips. He looks to his side, and Hyeon sits in the arm chair, Secretary Do tucked into his side.
Their closeness is secondary to the devastated look in the woman’s face. Wan groans as he tries to sit up, and that alerts them that he’s awake.
“Your majesty,” Hyeon says, but Wan looks past him to Huiju’s right-hand woman.
“Aide Do,” he pushes through a burning throat. “Tell me it isn’t true.”
Her face crumples in the next second, a sob falling from her lips.
Wan is no more prepared for it the second time his chest caves in that day. He’d barely managed to sit up, but he lets himself fall back into bed, clenching his jaw. He closes his eyes against the bright overhead light and the very reality inside this room. He can hear Secretary Do crying, and Hyeon’s words of comfort for her.
He can hear the beep of his own heartbeat, and he immediately resents it. How can his heart still beat while hers…
Seong Huiju…
He can no longer keep it in. Sobs escape through his clenched teeth. Tears squeeze out of his eyes and fall into his hair. With whatever strength he has he kicks his legs against the hospital bed, punches the mattress as spit flies from his lips.
Grand Prince I-an of the Kingdom of Korea is nothing more than a broken man on a hospital bed, rebelling against the pain of an unjust world in the only way he is able to.
Hyeon is beside him then, a hand on his shoulder, and he wants nothing more than to shake him off but he doesn’t, he just cries.
Bitterly, for a long time.
The sky is becoming light by the time his grief quiets down to a pitiful whisper.
He opens swollen eyes to the reality in the room. Secretary Do is asleep on the couch in the corner, covered by a blanket and Hyeon’s jacket.
Hyeon dutifully sits beside him, a tired gaze set on his hands.
His eyes are red. Swollen. There’s evidence of grief in all their faces, and at the end of that thought, there’s the acknowledgement of the reason why. She’s gone. They’re all grieving her. It’s as though Wan can’t go more than a few seconds before the reality of what happened catches up to him.
His head aches, and his tears have dried. He’s probably dehydrated. Thoughts beyond the burning grief begin to appear. It’s light out, it’s a new day. He’s not sure how long he’s been unconscious in the hospital. He’s not sure…what’s happening with Huiju’s…with her last rites.
He realizes that the world still exists beyond his personal pocket of hell, and soon enough he will be dragged back into it. But not yet.
“How did it happen?” he asks. Hyeon looks up at him. “I remember hearing her voice,” he says. “I heard her calling me through the flames. I tried to tell her not to come, I—”
He squeezes his fists, trying to keep tears at bay.
“How…” He takes a breath, tries to ask without falling apart. “What happened, how did she….?”
“Your majesty…She ran in when she found out you were inside. I ran after her, but a log fell right as she went through. I didn’t get to you two until later. The firefighters were right behind me. They pulled her out.” Hyeon bites his lip.
“You got to us?”
“Yes, your majesty. I carried you out—”
“Why didn’t you take her first?!” he demands. He would trade his life for hers in a heartbeat. He would give anything to be the one gone instead of her.
“She asked me to carry you out, your majesty.”
Wan squeezes his eyes closed.
“You were unconscious, she yelled at me…”
Guilt tastes like bile at the back of Wan’s throat. It’s his fault. No matter from which perspective he looks at it, it’s his damned fault. He shouldn’t have been there. She shouldn’t have been here, in the palace, with him. He should’ve agreed to the divorce. He should’ve protected her. He should’ve protected himself better and not underestimated her love.
“She was…she was…” Hyeon hesitates.
“Tell me,” Wan demands. It’s his worst nightmare in the flesh, but he needs to know every detail.
“She was awake,” Hyeon says. “When I got to you, she seemed okay. She helped get you on my back. A few minutes later when the firefighters came out with her she was coughing, but she was still awake.” Hyeon wipes his face. “They said it was the smoke inhalation. I heard…” Hyeon looks up at him, and Wan knows how he must look, can feel the tears trailing down his cheeks without any conscious choice, but his determination must seem stronger because this man, his younger brother for all intents and purposes, doesn’t stop.
“I heard she suffered from respiratory failure in the ambulance. They tried to save her at the hospital, but…”
Wan breathes through it, the devastating loss washes over him in waves.
He’s felt this pain before. This sharp, clean pain, like the slice of a blade against his skin.
When his brother died, there was pain mixed with regret. When his father died, there was pain mixed with relief. But when his mother died…Wan’s world imploded completely. The woman who was everything to him, the only person who loved and protected him, was suddenly gone.
It’s happening again.
Outside this hospital room, the entire country observes the half-mast protocol after the death of their Grand Princess. Inside, Wan struggles to reconcile a world in which Seong Huiju is no more.