"Yun Ki! Stop!" Areum shouts in the corridor.

"Why, Areum? I told you I don't feel a thing for you! Take a hint, will you??" Yun Ki screams over his shoulder.

Yun Ki opens the doors to his chamber, seating himself by the edge of his bed, followed in by Areum.

"Why won't you give me a chance?" She begs.

"Why won't you let me make you feel better, Yun Ki? Have you forgotten it all? Our chess nights, the way you wouldn't even let me sleep a wink until you --"

"That's enough. You're crossing the line." Yun Ki roars, standing on his two feet.

Areum stumbles back a little, almost as though she's woken a Lion from deep slumber.

"We never had any lines, between us...What's wrong with you?" She cries.

"Areum, there was a line drawn between us the day I told you what I felt for Soojin."

"How can you feel for her these grave emotions when she's called your affection as an act that she had forced herself to partake in..She saw you as a chore, Yun Ki. You suffocated her.." Areum screams.

She takes determined steps towards Yun Ki.

She grasps his hands and wraps it around her neck, squeezing.

"Why don't you suffocate me, instead? Kill me before you go back to her again, like the fool you are..."

Areum's eyes are red and the blue vessel popping out of her forehead is pulsating.

"Why are you doing this?" Yun Ki asks, broken.

"Don't you see? I'd still love you with your hands around my neck, just as much if not more.."

Yun Ki scoffs, unbelievably.

"You sound insane right now, Areum...Insane."

"Maybe I am going insane. Maybe I just want to be used by you, again and again, until I stop feeling this way." She comments, smiling as she tightens his grasp around her neck, drawing froth out of her mouth.

Yun Ki pushes her away.

"That's it!!" He screams, pinning her against the wall.

"Why do you sound so....guilty?" He words, searching in her eyes and maybe into her soul.

"I-I'm not.." She stammers, terribly.

Yun Ki lets go of her shoulders, taking in her posture.

Which is that of a timid cat.

"Coming to think of it, how do you know what was written in Soojin's letter, Areum?" He questions, having caught on to her act.

"W-What?"

"Don't play dumb with me...You worded Soojin's letter..How did you know what she wrote in it, Areum?"

Yun Ki walks closer to her shaking gait, grabbing ahold of her hair.

"Are you involved in this?"

"W-Why would I be, Yun Ki?" She winces in pain as his hold grows stronger.

"I don't know, why don't you tell me, Areum?" He mocks her tone.

Areum's looking into Yun Ki's pitch black eyes.

And she remembers the events from Dawn.

She sees flashbacks of her closing the gates on Soojin's face and watching her being chloroformed by Yong Sun.

She sees herself creeping into Soojin's room and searching every nook and corner for a trail that the vixen would've left behind for Yun Ki and spots the letter.

Reading through it, Areum laughs.

She watches her own self hatch a conspiracy, writing a faux letter as Soojin.

Flames fill her eyes as she threw Soojin's letter into the burning flames under the stove, that engulfed the letter and ate it all up.

"Did you do this, Areum?" He asks, once more, breaking her out of the flashbacks.

Areum locks eyes with the victim.

She doesn't even have to say a word.

"Why?" He asks, dejected and humiliated as he steps away from her.

Areum feels tears flow down her face as regret takes over her.

"Because, she made you happy...she made you smile the way I once did.." She confesses.

"Love is the biggest perpetrator, Yun Ki...It makes you do things you would've never imagined doing."

Yun Ki seats himself at the foot of his bed as he runs a hasty hand through his locks.

"You're wrong, Areum. Love isn't the perpetrator. It's your jealousy that's to blame."

He comments before he stands up and heads for the exit of his chamber.

"You repulse me, Areum. I don't know what I'm going to do with you..I wish I could kill you with my own two hands but I-I, I'm not the same anymore."

With that said, he leaves the room, leaving Areum on the floor, drenched and drowning in her own misery.

--------------

"We were wrong in our conclusions, Chief!" Yun Ki announces.

"She didn't elope with Yong Sun, she was taken by him. Worst of all, Areum was involved in this ploy." Yun Ki explains.

The Chief draws out his sword in anger.

"I'll behead her this very instant, Jeonha! She's committed the act of treason and mustn't live to see another day in her life!!" He shouts.

Yun Ki signals for him to let it go.

"What she's done is unforgivable however, I don't want to do anything to her right now. I'll talk it out with her and have her banished from the Kingdom...Right now, our priority is finding Soojin. That bastard wouldn't rest without having laid his hands on her...My Soojin is fierce, she's try and resist his forces for as long as she can but we don't have any time..What do you suggest we do?" Yun Ki speaks.

The Chief walks through the court, thinking of the situation through and through.

"Jeonha! Soojin wouldn't have been kidnapped inside the Palace. The security is rather high...Do you think she may have been lured out of The Palace?" He asks, toying with his beard, a strategy he engaged himself in as he thought deeply about a subject.

"Lured how?"

"Blackmailed, perhaps?" The Chief adds.

Yun Ki lets out a heavy exhale.

"But what could he have blackmailed her with? What does Soojin have that's like a soft target to her..?" Just as this question leaves Yun Ki's lips, the two men snap their heads at each other, eyes meeting each other's in a eureka moment.

"Her Family!" They scream in unision.

"Get the horses ready, Chief. Let's catch that bastard today." Yun Ki professes, running out of the court.