Night Prince

The Ducklings

"Absolutely not!" The king was particularly enraged now as he slammed his fist down on the armrest of his throne.

"Your majesty, please!" Ri Jeong Hyeok begged his father to listen to him.

"How could you think I would approve of this, Ri Jeong Hyeok? You are our last heir! We can't have you risking your own life floundering around in the forest looking for those cursed misfits!" The king spoke harshly.

"This is our first solid lead, abeoji! I have to go!" The prince argued, equally bent on having his way.

The queen looked worriedly between her husband and son, trying her best to find an opening to mediate before things got out of hand.

This was what happens when one puts two equally stubborn individuals in a room together. She was weak enough as it was. Her heart couldn't take more of them arguing.

"I will send the search party." The king determined.

"They are useless! You said so yourself. They don't know the rebels as I do!" Ri Jeong Hyeok gritted his teeth while glaring at his father.

"And pray tell why you think you know them better than they do?"

"I just do!"

"I have no reason to believe you without solid evidence." The king huffed in frustration.

"Are you even listening to yourself now? Why would I need to prove that to you? Don't you want to find the rebels? Don't you want to find Cho Hee?" Ri Jeong Hyeok's voice broke at the mention of the lost princess.

That was when the queen lost it as she stood up in her fury.

"Enough! Stop arguing! We're family. This isn't how we should be talking to each other." The queen snapped, breathing harshly from her outburst.

"Yoon Hee, you're not well. Please sit down." The king was gentle now as he spoke to his wife.

Similarly, the waves of anger left Ri Jeong Hyeok almost instantly at his eomeoni's outburst, and instead, shame clung to his cheeks. Once again, the prince has let his uncontrolled rage get the better of him.

Surveying her loved ones, the queen only sat down again when she was sure they would be able to talk properly.

"Joesonghamnida. I was being disrespectful. I know your concerns but I can't sit back and wait for the search party to find them." Ri Jeong Hyeok tried his best to state his stance in a calm manner, profusely apologising for overstepping his boundaries as a son.

"Do you not worry about your future?" The king asked, the lines of worry from over the years apparent on his face.

"I do. That's why I am doing this. I don't want to look back on this day and be regretful in the future. You know how miserable it is to live a life like that. Ever since that day, I couldn't breathe. The guilt ate at me every single day.

"I should have protected her better. I should have been the one who died instead of her. Those questions and guilt ate at me every single day. Even if-" Ri Jeong Hyeok took a shaky breath, wiping away the stray tears that streamed down his face as he bared his soul right in front of his parents for the first time in years.

"Even if she's long gone as we believed all these years, I know I can only move on when the rebels get what they deserve. I have to go, please. I don't want to live in this hell any longer." The prince pleaded with a strained whisper, suppressing the sobs threatening to tear his throat apart.

"Breathe, Jeong Hyeok. Why didn't you tell us?" The queen's eyes were brimming with tears at her son's confession to the pain he has been in all these years.