Then, on noticing the small pebbles scattered across the ground, he muttered in disbelief,
“Seriously, of all places, this is where you decide to fall.”
“I’m just… naturally unlucky… I always try to be careful…”
Lee-Jae mumbled weakly, but Roderick didn’t seem to catch what she was saying.
He kept checking around her hips and lower back with growing concern.
“Are you okay? Let me see. Hmm?”
Startled by his firm grip, Lee-Jae gave him a look of disbelief.
“Your Majesty.”
“Huh? What, does it hurt a lot? Let me—”
“You’re asking to look where, in front of everyone, outdoors?”
“Wait—you’re not thinking I—?”
Only then did the King seem to process the situation.
He glanced around. Everyone else was awkwardly pretending not to notice.
But it was already too late—they had all clearly seen the King not only touch the queen’s behind but linger.
Mortified, he pulled his hand away from the “injured area” and ran it through his hair with a heavy sigh.
It was a desperate attempt to regain composure—but one that failed miserably.
Instead, a wave of panic and belated anger surged through him, and he suddenly snapped.
“You should’ve called me the second you started feeling dizzy!”
“…It’s just a little fall. I landed on my butt.”
Lee-Jae flinched slightly at his outburst but answered with her usual calm.
Still, her casual response only seemed to irritate him more.
“Why are you so nonchalant about this? You know your head could’ve cracked open, right? Were you planning to wait until it did?”
“……”
“So I’m the thing that got jammed between you and the ground now?”
“……”
“Damn it. My heart almost stopped.”
“Well, I didn’t get hurt, so what’s the big deal? Why’re you getting all worked up again…”
Lee-Jae remained level-headed, even though she had been just as startled.
She knew that if she showed any sign of being shaken, the King would only get more agitated.
But even she couldn’t keep her cool when she heard what he said next.
“You really are a sly little fox. Your tricks are getting more elaborate by the day.”
“…What did I even do?”
“Don’t act like I wouldn’t notice. You went ahead and pulled something again, didn’t you?”
“……”
“You’re not saying anything on purpose.”
The King was nothing if not perceptive. Even though he hadn’t sensed anything malicious, he could tell Lee-Jae hadn’t just been shooting arrows.
He could often guess the truth just from her face alone.
Caught off guard by his accuracy, Lee-Jae averted her gaze.
The King narrowed his eyes at her in disapproval.
“One more stunt like this, and I’m confiscating that bow.”
That got her attention.
Pouting, she puffed out her cheeks in protest.
That bow—her prized creation after Yeomra—meant everything to her.
It might’ve looked unimpressive to the King and his knights, who were used to only the finest weaponry, but it held her spirit and soul.
There was no way she could let them take it.
The King, watching her sulk, let out a snort.
He poked one of her puffed-up cheeks with his finger. With a little hiss, the air deflated from her lips.
“What’re you pouting for? Think you’re a squirrel now?”
She grumbled in reply.
“It just feels like the list of things I’m not allowed to do keeps growing.”
And she was right.
“And maybe you should start asking yourself why. Don’t you think you’re pushing yourself too far—without telling me?”
Another bullseye.
“Lee-Jae. I asked you not to overdo it. I never asked you to pretend to be fine.”
“How can you not understand your husband’s heart at all?”
“Why do you assume I don’t understand?”
Both of them wore matching expressions of frustration. Each believed the negotiation was unfavorable to them—which was, in itself, ironic.
Because if you really looked at it, the entire negotiation was strange.
Negotiations, by definition, were supposed to be about reaching a mutual agreement. But in reality, they’re often nothing more than a calculated battle to gain the upper hand.
And yet, the condition Lee-Jae had presented was simply that she not be stopped from doing what she needed to do.
That wasn’t a condition that benefited her—it ultimately benefited the King.
What he wanted was for the ritual to be conducted in his presence, and for Lee-Jae not to overexert herself.
All of that came from a place of concern and care for her.
The clauses they each added were just as odd.
The King had said the negotiation would be null if she so much as got a nosebleed.
Meanwhile, she had said it would be null if he worried about her too much.
From start to finish, there wasn’t a single clause that served their own interest.
Everything was about protecting the other person.
But in order to get what they wanted, they had to argue with the very person they were trying to protect.
And so most of their fights fizzled out before they ever got serious.
More often than not, things ended not in hostility—but in an unexpectedly tender silence.
So really, this wasn’t a negotiation at all.
It was love and concern, dressed in the disguise of one.
Deborah and the knights were now witnessing the bizarre hybrid result of that fake negotiation.
They all stood there with the same confused expressions—caught between laughing and crying.
“Keep scaring me like this, why don’t you.”
“I said there’s no need to worry.”
“Why do you get to decide that? And do you think I can control it? I told you—my heart nearly stopped.”
“I didn’t want to say something so childish, but Your Majesty—our hearts don’t just stop that easily.”
“No, seriously. Touch it. I think it’s gone.”
“Wow, you’re even more childish than I am.”
“Then that means I win.”
The King and Queen were bickering like mad idiots.
And yet—while exchanging all those heated words, they were still clinging tightly to each other, bodies pressed close.
Every so often, the King would instinctively reach down and rub the base of her back again, still concerned.
In hindsight, maybe this situation had been inevitable.
This was the same King who grumbled with his mouth but quietly carved meat for her with his hands.
Those watching thought the same thing:
That couple’s going to end up kissing in the middle of a fight, aren’t they.
In the end, the king and Lee-Jae had went for a meal which ended in relative quietness.
That was because she spent the entire dinner lost in thought over the divination.
But when they returned to her chambers, she was caught off guard.
The King had helped her sit on the bed… and then abruptly left the room.
Not a single word of explanation.
Lee-Jae stared at the closed door he’d walked through.
“Did he really leave? …Did he actually get mad?”
But her husband was the type to say he was upset—not act like it.
When he claimed to be sulking, it was more of a reassurance: a signal that he wasn’t actually angry and she didn’t need to worry.
Even when he was making passive-aggressive comments all evening, he had still taken care of her dinner the whole time.
Puzzled, Lee-Jae eventually got up from bed and quietly opened the door.
Like a soft-colored fox, she cautiously peeked her head out to scout the area—only to immediately flinch.
The King hadn’t gone far at all.
He was standing right outside, talking to the royal physician.
He turned at the sound of the door creaking open behind him, brows raised in surprise.
“Why’d you come out?”
Lee-Jae fidgeted, mumbling under her breath.
“I just… thought maybe you had left.”
“Oh, so just because I said a few harsh things, you’re ready to kick me out again? I swear, I can’t say anything around my wife anymore.”
“No, that’s not what I meant…”
Roderick chuckled softly and brushed aside her short bangs.
“I’m just kidding. Go on back inside—I’ll be there soon.”
But Lee-Jae hesitated, unable to go in right away.
No matter how she looked at it, that physician was clearly here because of her.
She peeked out from behind the King’s back and tugged gently on the hem of his robe.
Then, in a quiet whisper, she said:
“What are you doing right now?”
He turned, bending slightly to hear her better, an expression on his face like, What is it this time?
“Just talking.”
“…I don’t mind the physician being here, but—”
“But what?”
I just don’t want you telling him my tailbone almost shattered, she thought.
Or that my butt almost broke.
But Roderick, completely unfazed by her embarrassment, replied casually:
“The body’s healed by medicine and physicians. The heart’s healed by one’s spouse.”
“…I’m not injured, though.”
“When did I say I was talking about you? I meant me.”
“Don’t worry about it. Just go rest, will you?”
Before she could protest, Roderick gently but firmly pushed her back inside and shut the door behind her.
Left alone in the room, Lee-Jae tilted her head, confused.
She had no idea what he was planning.
Still scratching her cheek in puzzlement, she eventually returned to the bed.
She laid there for a while, just blinking up at the ceiling.
Roderick finally re-entered the room when she had gotten bored enough to start flipping through Hailey’s journal.
She smiled softly and placed the diary down on her chest when she saw him come in.
But her smile shifted into a look of curiosity when Roderick climbed onto the bed—carrying something in his hands.
He had left empty-handed. Now he wasn’t.
“Your Majesty, what’s that?”
Lee-Jae tilted her head in confusion.
Roderick placed the small container on the headboard.
Then he took hold of her shoulders.
Her expression grew even more puzzled as he gently turned her around.
Now lying face-down, she raised her head and asked:
“What are you doing?”
His next words left her utterly stunned.
“Let me check where you fell.”
“…Come again?”
“I need to check. I almost had a heart attack when I saw our little bean nearly bring down the palace.”
“Are you seriously teasing me right now?”
Is this revenge? Did I mess with him that much earlier?
Roderick didn’t answer.
Instead, his hand moved toward the hem of her dress.
When he started lifting it, Lee-Jae shot up in a panic.
It wasn’t a joke.
Her husband was completely, one hundred percent serious.
Flustered, she scrambled off the bed and toward the edge in a frantic retreat.
