Kintsugi // ATEEZ [Ishihara Sequel] ✔

35 Golden

Just as she's about to step in, her arm is held by the person she had least expected; Yunho is holding on to her arm, stopping her from stepping inside the room. She only looks at him in slight disbelief; her mind racing as to why her closest ally is preventing her from seeing her husband.

"It's dangerous," Yunho manages.

Akira pulls back her arm, releasing a heavy breath. "Yet you let San into our kingdom. Did he not attack us and become the reason Seonghwa had to be locked away?"

He closes his eyes, pondering as he knows that there must be a lot of explaining he has to do to Akira. However, he can't even begin to let her know of the reason why he doesn't want her to step inside the room. He can't start telling about how he was about to kill her husband, when she had fully entrusted him to look over Seonghwa.

As he opens his eyes, he gets taken aback when he sees tears already dripping from her eyes.

"I'm tired," she utters. "Just let me see him."

Slowly, he moves out of her way before nodding to the door that has been unlocked. He balls his fist as he watches her tears fall even before she has managed to step into the room, but he knows that his warnings about the curse enveloping the room won't deter her from going inside. He watches from the side as she pushes the door open, holding his breath as if preparing to meddle in case the curse affects her too.

But there's only a heartbroken queen as she goes over to the bed, where the king is currently sitting upright, his eyes only directed to the wall and mind empty.

"Seonghwa," her voice is shaky as she reaches out for his hand, but she lightly gasps as his skin feels cold.

Seonghwa doesn't react to her calling his name, nor her holding his hand; he merely stares at the wall, his chapped lips pressed tightly together. He doesn't make a sound, his chest rising up and down regularly, his breathing pattern normal. He looks at the wall like there's something interesting there, completely ignoring his wife who's holding his hand.

To others who are looking at them, the scene looks slightly creepy how Seonghwa is merely staring at the wall as if he's alone in the room, but to Akira, she can feel her heart breaking as she utters his name again.

"Seonghwa," she tries again. "Are you-"

She stops talking when he lays his gaze upon her, but it is nothing like what she had expected from him. His gaze is so cold and empty; like he doesn't recognize her while his mind registers her as some stranger. She looks at her hand that's holding his and she blinks, the pooling tears falling down as she feels, as slowly as ever, Seonghwa pulling away his hand. She sits there speechless, her hand now released from his. Even as she lifts up her hand, she sees him slightly flinching, as if refusing to let her touch him.

"Seong-" she repeats, but she can't bear to finish calling his name as he lies down again, lying on his left side so that his back is towards her.

She stands up, already having her vision blurry from crying but even then, she cusses out loud as it has returned; the colours of her world are taken away from her. Only this time around, it lasts longer than she can bear that the last image she has of Seonghwa is him in black and white, back facing her before she runs out of the room. She runs past Yunho who's only standing at the border of the room, already witnessing what happened between the king and queen.

She stops running as she feels like the walls of the palace are closing in on her, yet the colours still haven't returned to her. Shouting in frustration, she rubs her eyes a few times roughly, but it still remains the same. She gasps for air as she's only been crying ever since she came to his room, and she can't take it anymore looking at him.