Taehyung's pov:
Being the only heir of Kim's Kingdom, my father had always made sure I was safe. And that safety comes with strict restrictions. I was not allowed to leave the Palace nor have friends. I envied the others who get to have friends and go out to explore the kingdom.
When all the other children were playing, I was trained to fight. I couldn't take the stress anymore and requested my father to send me out of the palace for hunting. Since it is another form of training to improve my skills and eyesight (hand and eye coordination). And also I can have fresh air. But he denied my request saying it's not safe for me to leave the palace.
With so much begging I convinced my father to send me hunting to the forest every weekend. It was not easy though. He asked me to fight a few of his men to check my sword-fighting skills. Being a teenager and fighting against well-grown men was too much to handle. Yet I had a decent fight. And my father agreed to my request.
Once I started hunting, I felt like archery was my thing. I started involving myself in Archery practice more. But my father did not like it.
A king should know to hold his Sword and lead his men not just hold his bow and arrow and stay behind, Taehyung. That's what my father said. He even made me almost kill one of his men using a sword to get the feel of seeing someone's life leaving their body so close.
He said one will never get that feeling in archery, shooting the target yards away.
He was always ruthless. He never showed much emotion. He wants me to be just like him. but I am not him. And I don't want to live my life like him.
I don't know anything about my mother. Few said she died while giving birth to me and few said she ran away from the palace being fed up with my father's behaviour. But everyone agreed on one thing that she was an extreme beauty.
And I have most of my aspects from her. I always wondered how she looked.
Also, I used to think about what they even call extreme beauty. That's until I met her. Now I know what extreme beauty is. It's Eun-mi.
She came to our Kingdom from Jeon's Kingdom. I always thought Mr and Mrs Lee had no children. But now I am happy that they have one. She was a quiet kid. I never saw her getting involved with any of the royal kids. I thought she was an introvert and didn't like to talk much until I saw her all smiling and chatting with the commoners while on my way to hunt. I couldn't take my eyes off her. I can't even get enough of her. I blamed my horse for crossing her so fast that day.
I always used to peek at her when she didn't notice me around the Palace. I also hear that people around the kingdom are betting about me falling for her and she would get to be the future queen. Well, I don't mind falling for her. I will gladly do that.
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One usual day, when I went hunting around the forest, I heard someone crying. I followed the sound and found a girl of my age or a few years younger sitting on a log with a torn dress and crying her eyes out.
I went near her to help her but she got startled by my presence and turned towards me like a scared Kitty. I tried my best to calm her down and asked her about the reason for her current state. She hesitated at first but eventually opened up and said that her so-called best friend didn't like seeing her dressed up like a royal when she was a commoner. Her friend was a spoiled brat who didn't want anyone but her to look beautiful.
Her friend also dared to tear the dress which was gifted by this scared kitten's late grandma. she started to sob like a kid saying that.
I pitied her upon seeing her like that. I was never around the people who show their emotions. This was new to me.
I didn't know what to do to comfort her yet I tried my best and it seemed to work. I liked the feeling of being someone's comfort. I liked it when she relied on me emotionally. I felt like I wanted to feel more of it.
I felt like I was being human with feelings and emotions for the first time. I didn't want to let go of this feeling sooner. So I asked her to meet me at the same location every weekend.
And as she promised she waited for me in the same location every weekend before me. Seeing her waiting for me patiently just to spend her time with me did something to me.
We talked upon meeting. Well, mostly she did.
She was an emotional person. Few may get annoyed by her constant crying and complaining. but I never felt that way towards her. Maybe because of having stone-like personalities around me 24/7, I guess.
I liked how expressive she was. Another one of the qualities I liked about her was that she never mentioned the name of her bitchy friend. She tried protecting her at all costs. She is an Angel. How could one even think of hurting her?
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I sent one of my men to find who that so-called royal friend of hers is. I was shocked to know that it was none other than Eun-mi. I never thought she would be like that. Now I get why she avoids royal kids and goes to commoners. She wants to show her superiority. What a pretty face without a pretty heart. By now, My crush on her was long gone. I never laid my eye on her after knowing her true colours.
I really wanted to teach her a lesson. But I promised Len-ah that I would never hurt her. I don't even know why she cares for the one who constantly bullies her. I felt like she was my responsibility to take care of. She looked fragile. I wanted to be the one to protect her.
A year went by and we continued meeting on the weekends and shared how that week went by for us.
But one fine day, she requested me to stop with our meeting. She said she isn't going to come to meet me anymore.
When I asked for the reason she said, "I am in love with you Taehyung. And I know I am at no level to fall for the highness. I know you don't feel the same way towards me. I know you are only pitying me. I don't want to fall deeper in love with you by meeting you every weekend. Let us end it here"
And once again she was a crying mess in front of me. Previously, whenever she cried it was because of Eun-mi. But now I caused her pain. She is crying because of me.
I indeed pity her and I don't love her as a woman because I have only seen her as a friend who is dependent upon me since the beginning. I loved the feeling of being her comfort.
Now that she is asking to stop with this meeting, I was scared that I am going to lose the only time I feel like a living being rather than a monster who is trained to fight.
I didn't want to lose this feeling and when I thought about it, I decided to love her as well. If the feeling of wanting to protect someone is love, if the feeling of being scared to lose what I have with her is love, I indeed love her.
She glowed like a star upon hearing my confession. And I felt happy to see her happy.
But her happiness didn't last long. I asked what was bothering her and she said, "How can a future king love a commoner? We can never get married to each other"
I smiled upon her fear and assured her saying, "Love doesn't come upon seeing the status. A King can love whoever he wants and can marry the one he loves. Here my love is you, Len-ah"
She smiled back and we shared our first kiss on that day.
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Everything was going fine and usual until one day when my father suddenly arranged my marriage with Eun-mi.
If I was the old Taehyung who doesn't know about Eun-mi's true colours I would have been on cloud nine. But now I feel disgusted and angry towards her.
She knew Len-ah and I love each other. Yet she agreed to marry me. I know I don't stand a chance in front of my father. I tried my level best to cancel the marriage, but it was of no use.
I was a hopeless failure. I was hurting Len-ah every passing day with this marriage arrangement.
I don't want to hurt her more by having her beside me when I get married to another woman especially her bully. So I asked her for a breakup. So that she can move on from me. But she decided to take her life just like that. For the love, she has for me. Her love towards me is unconditional and She is the one who deserves to be my wife. Not Eun-mi.
When Len-ah told me that Eun-mi knew about this marriage proposal all along and how Eun-mi flaunted to her saying Len-ah can only dream about being my mistress when she is the future queen, I lost my cool.
Eun-mi had the audacity saying that she wanted to teach Len-ah a lesson to not fall for the one you don't deserve. And there I wanted to teach a lesson to Eun-mi.
I wanted to take all the pride Eun-mi had and make her suffer by making Len-ah, my queen. I know what I have to do about that. But marriage with Eun-mi is unavoidable. So I got married to Eun-mi but made it clear to her that I only love Len-ah. I also took Len-ah into the palace by using her friendship with Eun-mi as bait to my father.
Even after taking Len-ah inside the palace, I know that she was insecure. So I spend almost all my time with Len-ah. I did all it takes to prove my love towards her.
I also appointed two guards to watch Len-ah secretly just in case Eun-mi tried to do something to harm her when I was not around.
To my surprise, Eun-mi never did anything to Len-ah nor tried to seduce me. She just did her work, neither interrupted us nor complained about anything to anyone making me wonder why.
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Just like that, several months are gone. I thought it would be the right time to execute my plan to teach Eun-mi a lesson.
It was me who spread the rumours of Eun-mi being infertile. That was my plan all along. With this, I can prove to my father that his decision of choosing her as a queen is wrong and I will select my queen by myself after throwing Eun-mi out of the palace.
And Of course, my queen is gonna be Len-ah. All these months spending so much of my time with Len-ah led us to get more physical and she ended up pregnant. I was happy that now I have two lives to protect.
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One day Len-ah came running to me all crying about Eun-mi bullying her after knowing about the pregnancy. I was enraged. I left my chamber in search of Eun-mi to warn her about her behaviour towards Len-ah.
But before going to Eun-mi's chamber I went to the guards to ask them what actually happened between Len-ah and Eun-mi. Because Len-ah did not tell me exactly what Eun-mi did.
To my surprise, the guards said that it was Len-ah who mocked and threatened Eun-mi first. And then Eun-mi ended up threatening Len-ah.
But still, my love for Len-ah made me blame it on her pregnancy hormones and also thought that Len-ah finally decided to stand up for herself against Eun-mi after bearing so many years of bullying.
So I went to Eun-mi's chamber and asked why she made Len-ah cry. I thought she was going to act innocent and blame everything on Len-ah and deny threatening Len-ah.
But once again to my surprise she did not oppose my accusations nor tried to use her charms on me. Rather she told me that I am being unfair towards her. I felt like her words were all true. Yet seeing Len-ah in pain for so many years because of her made me think that she deserves everything that's happening to her. I couldn't get to pity her. So I carried on with my plan meanwhile, pretending to help her.
For the sake of pretending, I spent a little of my time with Eun-mi. Every second I spend with her, I get this weird feeling I couldn't name. She appeared to be a genuine person. I shrugged off the weird feeling thinking of Len-ah's words.
Even though my heart said Eun-mi deserves everything that's gonna happen to her, my mind keeps on saying that something was fishy. Eun-mi never occurred to be the person Len-ah accused of all these years. Maybe Eun-mi changed now but still deserves the karma for her past mistakes right.
I gifted her a dress exactly like the one she tore off Len-ah to get some reaction from her. But she appeared clueless. Is she that good at pretending? I took her to the party like we were happily married. I saw a few eyes scanning her. Especially the king of Jeon. I didn't like it. So I stayed beside her. We talked and I kind of liked her company.
Only when I saw Len-ah's figure crying and leaving the party hall. Guilt struck me like a truck. When did I start seeing Eun-mi as my Friend? Yes, it has to be friendly affection since I have a pregnant woman in my life. I buried my crush on Eun-mi years ago after knowing her true colours.
As I followed Len-ah after excusing me from Eun-mi, Len-ah made sure to make me realize what Eun-mi did to her and made me determined to go with the plan. I spent that night with Len-ah. I didn't want to go back and see Eun-mi's face. Seeing her and her behaviour boggles my mind.
Since the next day, there has been a slight change in Eun-mi's behaviour. She makes sure to keep the conversation short. I knew she didn't like my company. I wondered what changed. But didn't think much about it because her time in the palace was ticking.
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On the day of the king's declaration, I did not expect all those to happen. Starting with Eun-mi being pregnant, me being thrown out of the palace and especially Len-ah choosing a royal life over me. Me still being blindly in love comforted myself saying that Len-ah chose royal life only for the welfare of our child.
I left the palace and walked around the kingdom clueless about my future until I saw Eun-mi.
Without a second thought, I shouted her name and ran towards her. I don't know what I expected to happen. But what happened was something I never expected.
I came to know that Eun-mi never bullied Len-ah. That torn dress Len-ah wore on the day I met her was not gifted by her late grandma. If I put my mind into it, that has to be the dress Eun-mi gave to Len-ah because she was the only royal around Len-ah.
Why did Len-ah do all these, blaming someone for something they never did and making me hate them for no reason.
On further thought, I guessed that she wanted me to hate Eun-mi. And wanted to be a royal. Len-ah had a slip of tongue during her reasoning to choose royal life. She said she had always wanted to be a royal and it's her opportunity to be one now when I asked her to choose me. Now all I want to know is if she had ever loved me.
Now that the truth unfolds in front of me, It was too much for me to handle. I felt like I wanted someone by my side to rely on. I wanted the comfort of someone who would say everything is gonna be alright even though I know it won't be. I want someone to sit with me in silence even if they had no words of comfort with them. I just want someone to be with at this moment.
But I had no one with me. All my life I had no one for me. And when I found Len-ah, I thought she was the one for me. But now I know that she was only with me for the royal life or whatever was her motive. I feel broken.
As a last hope, I asked Eun-mi for some of her time. I thought she wouldn't accept it based on our history. But to my surprise, she did. I thought she might taunt me for being so naive and stupidly believing in Len-ah. But she never did that.
Instead, she comforted me saying that the king will take me back into the palace. She made me think about my father's words. He never said he disowned me. He only asked me to leave the palace. So I hope he will take me back after I learned my lesson and proved him to be a better person.
Eun-mi not only gave me some of her time, she even gave me a path to follow, to become a better king, to become a better person. I know I don't deserve her kindness. But I am very thankful to her for being there for me when I felt like going nuts. When I felt like I was nothing but a loser.
What am I going to do to return her favour? When she says we won't meet again. I guess she is going away from this kingdom. It hurts to see her going away from me when all along I only wanted that to happen.
If only I didn't beg my father to send me hunting every weekend,
If only I didn't see Len-ah that day in the forest,
If only I didn't believe in Len-ah and used my common sense
My crush on Eun-mi would have turned into love,
This arranged marriage would have turned into a love marriage and finally, this miserable ending would have turned into a happily ever after.
I lost a gem in the hold of a stone.
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Posting after a long break.
Sorry for the wait
Thank you for reading