Day 1.

"You do know that you did the right thing, yes?" The Crowned Head of Goryeo speaks, sat with Yun Ki in his personal chamber.

Yun Ki sighs, heavily.

"You are aware of the entire story and I have nothing to conceal from you..I believe this was the only right step that had to be taken for this marriage to proceed in a favourable direction.."

Wang Taeiji, Yun Ki's father's closest companion and the Monarchial Head of Goryeo, pours him a glass of lemon tea.

He smiles at Yun Ki's unsure stature that is the result of his impulsive decision.

"Yah, don't think too much into it. Bom-i would've supported this, wholeheartedly. Grasp your Wife's hand and take her to see our Paddy fields, attend our ceramic pottery classes designed for Prince and Princesses in training..You could perhaps even indulge in poetry, your long-lost love." He preaches.

Yun Ki sits before him, sipping the warm tea and basking in the after-taste.

The man before him grunts watching Yun Ki's lethargic posture.

"Do anything rather than sitting before me like lukewarm rice. I may be old but you most certainly, aren't. You ought to be out and about with The Queen.. My Missus even decorated your shared Chamber, by her own self, as soon as we received your letter. Make use of this time, Yun Ki-ah.."

Wang Taeiji had been making valid points.

He had come all the way to Goryeo, knocking on Soojin's Chamber in the middle of the night to take her far away from Baekmin.

To a foreign land where he was no King and she was no Queen.

They were a married duo, who were out seeking each other's company.

Yun Ki nods before the man, finally catching on the hint before heading out of his Chamber.

He'd dragged along with him Chief Hong, a maidservant for Soojin and 5 guardsmen.

The 3 days 2 nights schedule was rather free and Yun Ki hadn't planned his future steps at all.

He was waiting on fate to take its course.

Soojin on the other hand, felt delighted.

The heated session involving battling tongues with Areum had filled her in with Performance Anxiety.

It'd left her distressed and worried as to how she'd satisfy Jeonha, a man who had quite a few preconceived notions and necessities to be swayed.

She'd been taken aback hearing prods on her Chamber door last night and was worried when a hasty Yun Ki showed up, instructing a maidservant to prepare a chest of clothes and daily necessities.

Soojin had walked into Goryeo's magnificent Palace, being greeted by the kind faced Queen, who escorted them to their shared Chamber.

She remembers watching Yun Ki return her reddened cheek appearance and not even stepping inside the decorated Chamber as he stuttered nervously and left away to visit Wang Taeiji.

Soojin had sat with The Queen expressing before her how they'd start trying for an heir, only to be met by her teasing manoeuvres.

For a middle-aged lady, who was at the stature of a Queen, she sure had an explicit mouth as she had Soojin cringing from her words, solely.

Discussing the regular tittle tattle over breakfast, she left Soojin alone to rest as they'd stayed up through the journey to Goryeo.

It'd been 2 hours since Yun Ki had returned and watching the only King sized bed made her wonder as to where she should sleep.

After much contemplation, she passed out over the mattress in the seating area, using red bolsters as her pillow.

Yun Ki walks in, cracking the bone in his neck as he rubs the balls of his shoulders, frustratedly.

The cramped up position of his neck in the cart on the way to Goryeo had him letting out small quivers in pain.

He locks the door behind him, flinging off his jute mask, that falls over the Wooden flooring with a thud.

Just as he's looking around for Soojin, his ears perk up to the sound of soft snores.

He turns around, treading towards the seating area, watching Soojin passed out cold, adorned in her pink Hanbok and hair tightly wound, head resting over a rigid looking bolster.

"Aish, she'll have her neck cramped just like me.." He whispers to himself, kneeling beside her.

His first instinct is to pat her over the arm, to wake her up but he watches her lips flutter as tired snores leave past her perched open mouth and he smiles at her baby-like innocence.

Concern overrides his need to wake her up and he reaches two hands beneath her frail body, trying to scoop her up in his arms.

He does so, languidly slow.

As though a knock or a poke of his fingers could jolt her awake and have her feel embarrassed from the proximity they were in, at the moment.

Yun Ki could feel the air leave past her lips, hitting his thyroid as he leaned in trying to envelope his arms around her body.

Once he's secured a hand under her neck and the other arm under her waist, he's shimmying her body closer to his.

His tongue is poking out from between his lips as he's focused on having her undisturbed.

He raises himself off of the floor, walking towards the lounge.

Walking would be an incorrect term.

He was waddling, enjoying the soft hair at the nape of her neck under the pads of his course fingers, as he stared at her relaxed and calm face.

Yun Ki lays her down on the shared King sized bed, he crouches beside her on the floor, reaching out to her plaited hair, untying the knots and ensuring that her circulation is maintained healthy.

He'd heard of how unhealthy it was for women to sleep with their hair tied tautly.

He runs a slow hand past her troubled braided hair, releasing each braid from the criss-cross pattern it had been set in.

His bony fingers scissor through them, releasing Soojin's frizzy hair with every knot untied.

He laughs a little at her voluminous hair but clamps a hand over his lips to prevent any sounds from leaking past his mouth.

He watches her stir lightly, turning away from him, over to the other side with her back facing him as he holds in a breath.

He watches the side of her body move with every breath she takes in her sleep.

Missing out on her face, he decides to join her in bed.

Untying the lace of his Jokki, he discards it by his end of the bed, clad in his brown vest as he slips into the soft mattress, as effortlessly as he can.

He lies over his hands, facing her body.

He watches as she has her hands clasped together over her chest, nuzzling into them as her hair have now fluttered over her face.

"Yeppeun.." Yun Ki hums, softly.

He raises a hand.

A selfish hand that itches to inch closer to her.

It swims in the air, palm aching to caress her cheeks and tuck the stray strands away from her lips.

He's about to retract his hand, respecting the distance between them when Soojin's head shuffles closer to his side of the pillow and the hair that were obstructing his view, get tugged away.

She lays before him, forehead clear of any disapproving wrinkles, nose pointy and sharp, cheeks that are filled with the air she huffs in and out and cherry red lips, all pouty, as though she's complaining even in her dreams.

Finding faults in the way her food has been presented before her or the fabric she has clad on.

All Yun Ki can see is her face, closer than the average radius that allows him to see eloquently but what he sees crystal clear are her rose-petal like lips, calling out to his own and this has Yun Ki's stomach filling with butterflies, doing laps as though he's swimming in high currents of a bottomless sea and he brings back his hand, that lies over his thigh as a clenched fist.

It's becoming too much for him.

Soojin's alluring Jasmine like aura is wafting through the air and causing his nose hairs to wiggle, all merrily.

He could feel the breath leaving past her pouty lips, brushing over his own.

Before he knows it, his eyes are fluttering close and he's inching his head closer to her, flexing his neck, until his lips land over her soft ones, in a gentle caress.

Adrenaline is coursing through his veins as he applies minimal pressure, to ensure a small touch or a slide of his lips over her warm ones.

He can feel the ridges of her lower lip as he suctions his mouth over hers, in the least pressuring way.

A small 'pop' is heard and Yun Ki moves away, watching Soojin's nose twitch.

He'd never kissed someone this way before, this gently.

It was all teeth clashing and tongue slotting with Areum.

This caress of his own lips over Soojin's was a gesture.

A gesture of comfort and a new way Yun Ki was finding himself jog along.

She was worth every second of panting, every trickle of sweat and every drop of blood.

He smiles a little, watching her snore, nonchalantly before he closes his own eyes to finally catch up on some well-deserved shut-eye.

——————

When Soojin wakes up, it is from the sharp array of light striking over her eyelids, that have her squirming around until her forehead bumps into something equally as hard.

She flutters open an eye, to be met with Yun Ki's calm face, asleep.

She raises her head off of the pillow, trying to understand how she'd found herself on the shared bed with Jeonha.

Just as she's attempting to roll to the end of the bed to get up, she feels the heavy weight of an arm over her waist.

Biting her lips, she watches Yun Ki's hand sprawled across her upper half, heavy enough to weigh her down and restrict her from raising her frail body.

She tries to wiggle out of his grasp, replacing a pillow under his arm but it's not budging and he's holding onto her as though his life depends on it.

Just as she's tugging his arm away from the tight grasp he has over her, he flexes his biceps, pulling Soojin's body flush against his own.

Soojin lets out a small 'Oh' in return.

She lands with a loud slam, chest hitting his own muscular one as her hands are grabbing his shoulders and groins are slotted together as though they're incomplete pieces of a jigsaw.

Her nose bumps against his round one and she pries shut her eyes, wrinkles accentuating around her eyes as she scrunches her nose, pushing at his shoulders, to release her.

"Y-Yun Ki.." Soojin gasps as she realises that he has a leg slotted between her parted legs, knee grazing over her core, through the fabric.

Yun Ki jolts awake, eyes opening at once, bloodshot red from the exertion as he runs his vision over Soojin's close form.

He takes a minute to realise that she's withering against him, ends of lips curled into a displeasured look and he curls around immediately, in a swig movement.

No one could've guessed what possessed him to roll around so hastily and yet he does, much like a Hyena.

Such that his embarrassed back is now facing Soojin's confused front.

He runs a palm over his face, rubbing his eyes as he tries to percept the feeling of Soojin plastered against him on the huge bed.

He hears shuffling behind him, followed by the lifting of a weight from the mattress.

He stays put, hiding his face and remaining as stone-like as he can.

He's embarrassed but he should see Soojin's face.

Watch her as she goes red like a tomato and scrambles out of bed, making a beeline for the sauna, the only place she could think of running to.

The only place that'd match the temperature of her body, in this very moment.

——————

Lands and lands across, a man poses as a practitioner in Daegu.

He tends to a very-pale looking Joon Ki, whose arms have shrivelled up back to their former glory, indicating a very negative prognosis.

Yong Sun has placed acupuncture needles all over Joon Ki's skin that have him feeling as though he has red ants crawling all through the expanse of his body.

He tries to slur out complains as he's hyper responsive to pain and yet all he's met with are muffled curses and high pitched shushed whines escaping from behind his bed, out of Joon Ki's vision.

The room is filled with steam and vulgar sounds of skin slapping over skin, as squelches and wet pops are heard rhythmically and Joon Ki tries to make sense of what is going on behind his bed, behind his head as he sees neither his Practitioner nor the lethargic nurse in sight.

His poor mother is at her regular work at the Fabric Store, one she'd opened up using the gold coins she'd received in exchange for Soojin.

Joon Ki lays in bed all day, buttocks filled with pressure sores and itchy boils coating the back of his thighs and spine, that tinge every time he even squirms in bed.

He's rotting in unchanged, unwashed sheets.

All he does is stare up at the ceiling, the moans filling his ears as the background music to a melancholy.

He feels his eyes fluttering, he knows he's dying.

He knows this Practitioner isn't worth nothing and he knows that his life resembles a candle, as of now.

It glows as long as wax reaches the flame via the wick.

As soon as the wax runs out, the flame too, will falter and eventually blow out.