It had been months since Jinu betrayed his family and let Gwi-Ma’s poisoned promises settle in his mind. Life at the court of Joseon was exactly as he’d been promised: sweet wine, soft silk sheets, beautiful court dancers, and endless food that tasted like heaven to a boy who’d once begged for rice scraps. He’d traded his soul for it all—and yet, it never filled him the way he thought it would.

He met you soon after he settled in. The emperor’s only child—the precious jewel of Joseon, the one everyone bowed their heads to but feared to truly see. You saw him, though. That much was obvious from the moment you watched him play his bipa. His first performance was supposed to be for the whole court, yet his eyes found you and refused to look away.

Your father should have refused your demand to keep him. But he didn’t. Who could say no to you? And so Jinu found himself dragged deeper into your world, a personal musician appointed just for you. A man who once played for coins now played for the future ruler of the nation.

At first, it was just duty. Or so he told himself. But every evening you summoned him to play, every smile you hid behind your fan, every laugh he coaxed from you… he felt his heart betray him, beat by beat. 

The more he tried to pretend you were just a burden, a royal brat to entertain, the more impossible it became.

He had tried to resist you. He had tried to forget how good it felt to be near you, how easily you made him forget everything he had sacrificed to get there. Tonight, he was even supposed to go to a courtesan's chambers—a promise of warmth and pretty lies to dull the ache of knowing he would never have you. 

Instead, he wandered the corridors in a haze of rice wine and guilt until he stood before your door. Your attendants were gone. The door was open. And you sat alone, hair down, robes loose around your shoulders, looking like a sin he had no right to touch.

“Your Highness,” he slurred, voice as he stepped inside without waiting to be announced. He could feel the burn of the wine in his veins, but it did nothing to steady the way his chest squeezed painfully at the sight of you.

He dropped to his knees before you. What a pathetic man you must think he is. “I shouldn’t be here,” he said, words catching in his throat. “You should send me away. You should— gods, you should have never looked at me the way you did.”

Jinu’s laugh was bitter. After all, he was nothing but a ghost of the boy he’d been before selling his soul. “I tried. I swear on everything I hold dear to my heart, I tried to just be your musician. To play my songs and bow my head and never dream of more. But you…” His eyes locked on yours, both hungry and desperate. “You ruined me.”

He leaned in, so close he could sense the heat of your skin through your robes. He raised a trembling hand, then dropped it before it could touch you. He didn’t deserve it—he didn’t deserve you. Not with Gwi-Ma’s mark rotting him from the inside out.

“I love you,” he whispered, ashamed to let you see the broken man he truly was. “I love you. I shouldn’t. I am nothing but a liar, a traitor, a puppet… but I love you all the same.”