"I'm sure you're wondering why you're here," Soo-Won has entered the tent where Yona stands livid next to his bed. Her mind is racing a million miles an hour and she's still feeling uncomfortable, trying to understand every confusing moment that led up to now.
Soo-Won watches her for a beat, sorting things in his mind. Then he moves and-
-Yona's eyes follow him as he takes a tray from one end of the room to a table with two chairs on the other. All the while she thinks about Hak. How much her heart aches to talk to him about everything. She doesn't have all the answers, but if there's ever been a place to find them, it's been together with him.
But they're not together and they can't be yet. She's got to be strong on her own. Here. Now. For both of them and for Kouka.
Yona responds to Soo-Won, "Do you host many discussions in your bedroom?"
"I wanted to be alone with you, Yona. It's not an easy thing to achieve."
Soo-Won lifts a cup of tea in offer to her. She eyes it suspiciously. He holds her gaze as he takes a sip, then offers it back, "It's not poison."
"I don't want it."
"Please, you don't look well."
Yona's eyes flash at him, "I'm fine."
"You've been doing a lot of pretending today, haven't you?"
"You're mistaken."
"I'd rather spend the night in silence than trading lies," he laments.
"You're one to talk, Soo-Won," Yona spits his name from her mouth like a dirty word, "Why am I in your sleeping quarters?"
"If I tell you, will you sit down and drink this?"
"Only if I believe you."
Soo-Won walks around the table and pulls her chair out, then in the most serious of tones, "Because my advisor would have killed you tonight if you were anywhere else."
Yona stares at the chair, tears of realization welling in her eyes, "Tell me my friends are OK."
Soo-Won gestures at the chair. In a worried stupor, she advances to it and sits. She looks up at him suddenly as though he were made of answers.
He sits across from her and lifts his own cup to his lips, completely calm, "This variety was grown by General Geun-Tae's wife. It's a good trade opportunity for the Earth Tribe."
Yona lifts her tea to her lips, looking at him over the cup, unable to talk about Kouka. He never answered about her friends. And as she looks into his eyes, she knows he knows everything she's thinking. Like some terrifying mastermind.
"Tell me, Yona, what is it that you want?"
She swallows the tea, then, "You're right, these are good leaves. Not the highest of quality, but in the perfect range for daily consumption."
Soo-Won smiles at her tenderly, "I thought you'd answer differently. You've grown up."
Yona can't hold back her emotions, "You must have thought I was one pathetic little girl that night."
Soo-Won stares, and in a rare tell, his breathing quickens, "If I thought that, I wouldn't have brought you here tonight."
Yona's heart is racing as she tries again, "Tell me my friends are OK."
The truth of what she wants. Always that. "There you really are, Yona," Soo-Won sets his tea down, then turns his eyes away from hers as he does what needs to be done, "I want you to know I expect nothing from you. I gave that all up."
Yona latches onto gave that all up as she watches him continue…
"However, there is something I am asking of you... in exchange for whatever you want that I can give."
"You have no right."
"I know," he tucks his head down in shame, then looks up at her sincerely, wavering, the slightest tinge of pink in his cheeks, "I'm asking you to stay alive."
Yona stares at him, frozen.
"Live a life, Yona. However you choose it."
The words are not processing. But her anger toward him is rising. And her eyes welling with tears once more, "You. You took my life from me! You took everything!"
"Not everything."
They lock eyes and suddenly she feels exposed. He lifts the lid of a box on the table and raises the hairpin off the velvet interior before gently placing it on the table before her. Yona's eyes watch it and her heart tightens in intense worry.
"Don't say a word to him tomorrow. Not about sleeping here with me tonight. Not about that I know you have a ring around your neck and he probably has the one that matches. Not that Ogi betrayed you both or I told you I loved you. Not a single word."
Yona clasps a hand to her mouth. Silent tears stream down.
Soo-Won stands and walks toward his bed, looking away.
Yona starts sobbing.
He puts his fingers to his brow, knowing he can't take back what he just did. He confessed.
Then, surrendering, "Live your life with him, Yona. Do that and stay far away from the palace," he turns, his eyes clear with warning, "It's not a place you'd remember anymore."
Yona is swimming in a mess of emotions, but her heart cannot betray its nature, not even with him, "Are you in danger?"
"Royals are always in danger."
"You're trapped," she insists she knows what's going on as though it were something fixable.
"So are you here. Like a mouse about to be prey. Figures of power uncomfortable with the alliances you're unwittingly making. Men and women alike wanting to touch you, take you. I saw your face with her tonight. You may hate me, but we do share that rare knowledge - what it feels like to not want it. Trying to please everyone and losing the only people you love in the process. Stop now, Yona. Take what you have left and protect it."
"I want to protect my country. I want to stop this war with Kai."
"There's no stopping this war. It will happen in two days. But he doesn't have to die."
"WHAT?!" Yona lunges at Soo-Won and grabs his robes, shaking, wild. He holds her steady, snaps into his impossible calm to be clear and serious.
"There's no way forward with the three of us together, Yona. The two of you need to disappear."
Her heart drops, "You didn't ever intend to discuss Kai with me."
"Not at all."
She lowers down from her toes as this all hits her like a boulder, "Then what, I'm just supposed to sleep in your bed so your advisor won't kill me?"
His eyes are sincere, pleading, "I won't touch you."
"...then leave with the dragons in the morning?" she sees the hesitation on his face, "...you don't want me to take the dragons..."
"...that is one final thing you could do for Kouka."
She lets go of his robe and steps back, "And if Hak and I stay to fight?"
"There's only so much even I can do."
Yona stands staring for the longest time. Her country and her dragons, her role as princess… or Hak. The man who holds her heart. Who has become a part of her very soul. Without whom she cannot survive. Had she started her exile with the only thing she needed in life after all?
Yona looks at Soo-Won's bed as she asks one final time, "Tell me my friends are OK," then adds, "And tell them… I'm not coming back tonight. By my own choice. And they cannot tell Hak, no matter what."
"I can promise everything but the last request. There's no messenger I can send with that information."
Yona closes her eyes in a prayer that Jae-Ha will know what to do. And what not to.
Yona lays in bed staring at the man she will never fully trust again. Soo-Won stares back, true to his word without a hand near hers. There's a tremendous sadness between them. Like the shadow of a scene from their childhood. The bonds broken.
Yona whispers the truth as though it's the last thing she'll ever say to him, "I don't hate you."
Soo-Won doesn't smile brightly. He smiles sadly.
For the first time in the longest of times, he isn't pretending.
Two trapped royals... wishing freedom for the person they're staring at, a person they once loved.