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Chapter Text

It's kind of like how her favorite pot flower's life goes. It makes a full-grown flower bloom like it was in an early spring day after a freezing winter, dries through the summer and come autumn, withers completely. Before the cold returns and petrifies its state and then somehow, comes back to life as one beautiful blossom again.

Except that she knows that the flower that died isn't the same flower that comes back. Even when they look identical.

Kim Yeon stood by her lady's deathbed, who was her son's birth bed just a few minutes ago before she succumbed to her loss of blood and fatigue from bringing Jang Uk into the world. The head maidservant of the house does not know if it is befitting to wail for the loss of her best friend or continue smiling as the child in her arms opened its eyes at her, trying to memorize her face as she was the first person he saw.

She knew that from that moment on, she will be this child's mother. 

"Uk-ah," she sniffled, calling him the name his mother gave him— the last thing she said with her last breath. Jang Uk. The sunrise. The light; which makes utter sense because at his age, a few moments out in the world, he was already reaching his half-inch fingers to her face, wiping the silent tears that crept out of them. 

Her cries meant something for both. The joy of seeing a beautiful baby boy that takes after Do-hwa in her arms, and the agony of losing its mother. 

What innocent, fragile thing she holds. So precious and great. Uk cried at his birth but as soon as she held him, he stopped. And the moment his father took him from her arms, he let out deafening cries.

"My lord," her breath hitched when two strong arms carelessly pulled the delicate body from her shelter. Her widened eyes looked at Jang Gang's, whose soul wasn't even a bit concerned about the life he's holding. He did not even look at the child, didn't care even when he was being reckless. She expected him to be the one to vow for his son's safety. She wanted him to at least acknowledge the fact that he's now a father despite being a widower at the same time. But he was not.

She had been in love with Jang Gang for a long time. Always admired him and did everything for him. But that moment that she didn't find any clue of a feeling in him, all she saw was a monster, holding a helpless newborn in his hands that only knew destruction. 

"Where are you going, my lord?" She chased after him. Hopping past the maids that weeped for their lady but momentarily stopped in shock after how their lord took the young master away. She was the only one who was putting her life in the line. 

She knows that it's wrong to disobey her lord or act otherwise, but she felt like a piece of her soul was torn away when Uk's warmth left her that instant. 

Jang Gang walked quietly with only the sound of his scabbard heard dragged behind him against the ground. He acted deaf to her pleas of letting his son go, because her trust to him as a father was quickly gone the moment he looked at Uk with such emptiness in his eyes. 

She has known him by choice and by heart. And so she memorized the meaning of each breath he takes, even the slightest strain of voice whether it's from a common cold or tears he tries to conceal. Thunder rose in her heart, signifying that he's up to no good with his son.

So it had been a quick decision to just risk every piece of her even if it meant that the Gwanju's sword will be next to her throat as she keeps being persistent. 

"My lord," she said once again as she felt him stop in his tracks. If anything, she thinks her head would be next but at least she'd still be able to utter another plea. 

Two palms rubbed against each other, ready to beg for mercy not for her, but for the child. 

But it was not what she anticipated, when Jang Gang turned to face her with his deadly glare.

"Jang Gang."

A deeper voice, taller stance, shadowing over her eyes. 

"What are you planning to do with him?" Park Jin's eyes darkened with his calm threatening to fade as he looked at Uk who cried relentlessly as if seeking for help. Beside him was Heo Yeom, who looked just as afraid for the child.

"His birth never should've happened," that was what Jang Gang said instead of an answer. He drew his sword, making Kim Yeon scream the moment she tried to steal Jang Uk from his arms.

It was all a blur. All she knew was she didn't care if it were her arms to be stabbed or sliced in half but when she opened her eyes, knowing she was still breathing, she felt the weight again against her chest. Uk's wails came louder, and before she saw everything in one piece, she saw a familiar silver silk by the left side of her sight. It was embroidered with faint patterns only higher Songrim mages get to wear. 

She soon opened her eyes, the fact that a sword is still pointed to the infant in her shelter sinking in. She gasped, dragging herself backwards, but a hard barrier hit her back. 

Looking behind, there was nothing but a force field there in the shape of a bubble surrounding her. Gently looking up, she realized that it was Park Jin who put the shield there. 

"Do not harm her," his eyes were now completely filled with ferocity against Jang Gang. But when he swung those same eyes to her, they were telling her not to worry.

He is going to protect them both.

Chapter Text

"Even if you let him live in this world, he's not going to last long."

Those words echoed in Park Jin's mind like it was some kind of sorcery he's bound to go unhinged to. Jang Gang was not himself. He's speaking like he is not the father of the child. Like his wife was not the one who birthed it. 

"So you suggest killing him? Have you gone insane? He is your son!" His voice rolled thunder in the small alley where he caught up to his best friend's steps. 

"He is not my son!" Gang's reply was of the same intensity, the same tune even. 

And he was taken aback. 

His beloved Do-hwa… Do-hwa who, despite his state at Songrim, made him run like a wolf to their home upon hearing of her demise. Do-hwa who didn't reciprocate his poems and gifts and his love. Do-hwa, the truest to everything she does and thinks; stayed faithful to Jang Gang even when he was everywhere but her side.

How can he say that Uk is not his son?

"What do you mean he's not your son?" His voice went brittle, as well as his grip on his sword. 

Jang Gang smirked bitterly and looked down on Uk, currently nursed in a frightened Maidservant Kim's arms. "He…" And looks back at Park Jin, "is a dead man's son."

"I will take him," Maidservant Kim said in fright, both her impulse as a new guardian and her fear of losing her life and Uk's acting up as her chest rose up and down so quickly. 

She refused to let go of Uk since Jang Gang. She didn't place him anywhere else, nor let any other person hold him. He'd been staying in there like his weight did not matter and she didn't care if she had to do it forever. 

"We will leave quietly to my hometown. I'd raise him, they'll know that he's my son," her hysteric voice didn't help her form new words that would make sense. "Or we'll go anywhere far. Just don't let Lord Jang kill him. He's still Do-hwa's son…" Tears fell from her eyes simultaneously as she looked down at Uk who was now sleeping silently. " Jebal. It's already bad enough that his gate of energy is closed." 

Park Jin inhaled deeply, taking his eyes off of the sight of Maidservant Kim's pretty face, wary from crying so much. 

"Jang Gang wouldn't kill him." If it were to bring her any comfort, he said it. She knew of everything. She was there, listening in horror as Uk's father told the tale of how he was conceived and how he does not acknowledge his own flesh and blood as his. 

He wished she fainted. He wished she didn't have the strength to listen to the topic that lighthearted humans like her couldn't bear. But with all of her fear came all of her bravery as well. She wanted to know what's to come for the newborn boy and he can swear he saw her lose it when she heard Yeom say that Jang Uk is going to have a life full of misfortune. Not only because he lost his mother due to childbirth and that he was conceived out of sorcery, together with the fact that his father turned back from him as soon as he was born; but because he will never learn any spells. He will have a fragile health that does not compare to mages who have their gates open. He will belong nowhere, and it scares them. 

But it's the only way for him not to suffer a worse fate. Perhaps an early death is even the best way to go.

"He closed Uk's gate of energy so he could live on as his son and not unravel what's not supposed to. You don't have to worry, Kim Yeon." He exhaled at that, calming his features for the sake of the woman standing in front of him. "His only intention was for Uk to be protected."

"And why couldn't he have done it himself?" She asks out of pure confusion. The happenings were just over an hour ago for her already frail mind to absorb. She was not mad. Park Jin knows that a woman whose love for someone lasted for years wouldn't easily be fazed by a single mistake or misunderstanding. She was just disappointed and at this point, badly frustrated.

"We don't know that, but I assure you–"

"I thought he would kill my young master," her voice trembled. "Is it possible for him to send people from Cheonbugwan to do his bidding?"

"Killing Uk is never his intention, I promise." He still dealt with her even when he's not used to it. She's a woman who has a lot of questions and mistrust.

"But what if somebody else does?" 

"Definitely. Somebody else will," he says. "He's born with the King's energy. If word gets out that he has that kind of power, the king will come for him. He will be a threat to their power. That is why his gate had to be closed."

"But that wouldn't be enough. Even if he can't cast spells, if anyone knows of it, then–"

"That is why I don't permit you to take Uk anywhere, Maidservant Kim." Park Jin was now stern with his words. "I shall make sure that anyone who knows the truth about him be silenced. If you take him home outside Songrim now, he will be in danger." 

That made Yeon pause, listening carefully to him. 

"Cheonbugwan keeps records of the sky. I shall retrieve today's plate from there so no one knows that he was born with the King's star revealing itself up above," he stands up and collects his sword as well as his bow, preparing already. He has already walked past Kim Yeon when he felt like he had to turn around and say one more thing.

"As for you," he says as a form of calling her, which she quickly responds to with a glance. "You will be living in a house at Songrim for the time being, so you can watch over Uk and I can keep watch of the two of you."

She nodded but it didn't seem to be enough. He figured it was impolite and discouraging that he spoke so insolently standing like that, with only his head pivoted to her direction. 

Jin twirls nimbly, and then takes a step closer to her. He transfers his bow to the same hand that gripped the handle of his sword and used the now free one to gently put his warm palm over a sleeping Uk's little forehead. He looks at him with both delight and assurance, that he soon transferred to Yeon once she met his gaze. 

"Don't worry," he smiles softly. "The safest place you can be is by my side."

Chapter Text

Magic does exist in Daeho. But not the type of magic that makes one forget a great feeling in just a day. Like how Park Jin had been drinking for days, staring at Do-hwa's painting in his study room at Songrim after they were able to hold a proper funeral for her about a month ago. 

It has already been almost five months since Jang Uk was brought to this world. The time was spent mostly sealing all possible holes that could make the innocent child in danger, and that was done by Park Jin and Heo Yeom with the help of their mages. 

Jang Gang's disappearance is still a loose thread, however. And it will perhaps be there forever in any situation that he doesn't come back. None of them knows where he's gone, or what his true intention for leaving was. If he just had been impulsive and overwhelmed that he wasn't able to think clearly on the day Uk was born, they figured that he would've been back by now. But still, he's not around. Do-hwa is in her final resting place. Her ashes are displayed in a room inside the Jang family house for a month already and yet there was no trace of her husband trying to come in and grieve when everyone has had their time crying for her.

Kim Yeon admittedly had the least time to grieve. Or perhaps the longest, because she figures out that every time she spaces out with nothing to do when Uk is asleep or he's being tended to by another servant, she feels every bit of agony stab her heart. There is her mourning for their friendship, as well as the loss of a son to his mother, and the disappointment she feels about the man she used to go crazy for. And it's been going on for every single day she has been raising the baby that her best friend left. 

Uk is undeniably her joy despite all of what's happened and still is currently happening, but that doesn't change the fact that there is unresolved sadness in her that needs to be addressed, it's just being ignored for the time being.

Now would be the best time to do that. Because everyone’s recovering from the previous happenings. A new royal family has succeeded to live in the palace after the late king’s death; Their people have had their time coping up with the loss of Do-hwa; Jang Gang’s position as Gwanju is assumed by Jin Mu in his absence and Uk’s involvement with that shouldn’t matter in still a long while. Park Jin seems to have managed whatever danger there may be for the child judging from the fact that he hasn’t mentioned that in days. 

She can breathe clearly now. There are Songrim servants anyway who look after Uk when she is not around. And it’s not like she chooses to not be around, but she can. Like she did tonight, after making sure her little Uk was sleeping soundly in the guarded bedroom. It is Do-hwa’s birthday.

She makes sure that her altar is kept, sending servants there regularly to clean and maintain the container of her ashes as well as the painting that hung next to it. Well, it hasn’t been long since she watched it polished and embellished with Do-hwa’s favorite flowers. She even did it herself, since she’s aware that people from other parts of the country will flood the Jang family house to celebrate the beautiful life that their Do-hwa had. Beforehand, she already made sure she had her time alone in that room— nursing Uk in her hands and telling him about his biological mother. That was yesterday night. But tonight, her absence from Uk was for another person.

As much as Kim Yeon would love to spend this night and the ones to follow to allow herself to heal, she was never used to putting herself first. It’s always been and mayhaps will always be another one no matter if they’re close to her heart or not.

She doesn’t exactly know which one to call Park Jin, whose room she is outside right now.

She doesn’t know what to call them, or everything they shared. The man has been her companion for when she accompanies her then Young Lady to her and Jang Gang’s dates. She and Jin have exchanged some friendly banter, exercised occasional small talk. It was never awkward but never too comfortable as well. But if she can be sure of anything, it is that they have been witnesses of each other’s life for a long time already. Sure, there was no discussing anything in between. But they were there. Present. Always has been side-by-side no matter if they acknowledged it or not.

If that’s not true, then she does not know how to explain why her heart told her to go to his quarters this late only to watch quietly from the crevice of his door as he didn’t mind using a small cup to drink the large jug of wine he had beside him on the table. She might not see his eyes, but she can clearly perceive the portrait of Do-hwa hanging on the wall he’s facing; enough for her to tell that her hunch has been right all along.

This was why her heart had been so uneasy. Because as much as she knows that she’s suffering from this in the worst way possible, she is not a stranger to Park Jin facing the same—or probably worse than what she does. And she couldn’t just do nothing and think of herself knowing that.

Behind her are a few other servants, carrying portions of the whole meal she prepared for the Songrim Leader. She’s aware that he’s not been eating properly these past few months and it’s evident in the way his clothes looked bigger on him. She would just like to leave them on his table, or see him have even a single bite. But the moment she cleared her throat to let her presence be known, she was invited for something more than what she expected.

Parts of Park Jin’s face were tinted red. His cheeks, the tip of his ears, and the point of his nose. But most prominently, his eyes. They have always been dark but now, she pegs them darker, and with a blood-like hue coming from the inside out. 

“ Juin-nim ,” she bows, before cueing her attendants to place the trays that they carried on the table as she worriedly but calmly faced him once again. “I figured I’d serve you your favorite foods since you haven’t been eating well these days. Are you alright?” 

And yet instead of an answer, all she received was a blank stare. A moment of silence, before he cut it off by telling the other people in the room to leave since they’ve done their part. He swung his eyes back at her after a second and finally gave a smile. 

“Kim Yeon,” her name escaped his lips in a way that his dimples slipped. He scanned her from head to toe in a quick moment and then pulled a chair right next to where he sat, tapping that seat and not taking his eyes off of her. “Join me.”

Startled, she hesitated. “I’m sorry, I wasn’t planning to–”

“Please?”

Yeon bit down her lip quietly when she saw his face shift from sad to… sadder. Just that the twinkle in his eyes was too charming to say no to.

Uk will not wake up until half-past midnight. I should be good.

“Uk will be fine. I pay his attendants, in case that’s what you worry about.” Park Jin even amplified the thought that came to her mind. So wordlessly, she sat down. And he quickly poured her a drink, feeling giddy about it. 

Lord and servant. That’s what they are. That’s definitely it, because she did not even dare face him when she drank her liquor. She calls him with proper honorifics, and she figured out that she has always kept her distance all this time.

“ Guksu? ” Park Jin suddenly made a sound upon uncovering the wok of noodles she made for him. “Kim Yeon, you know me the best,” he chuckled. Everything about him is just odd. He looked as if he forgot happiness just a minute ago and now that a beautifully prepared meal is in front of him, he’s incredibly happy. 

Lord and servant. And yet she knows his favorite food and exactly how he likes it. 

Close friends, then?

“Aren’t you supposed to be drinking with Master Heo instead?” She asked once she’s over the bitterness of her first drink. The taste of it evident on the way her face crumpled.

Park Jin pours them both another cup. “He’s staying at your home. I asked him to take care of everything there since you will have to attend to Uk.”

“Pardon?”

“He’s fine. He’s used to guests–”

“I assigned someone to head the occasion and you’re letting Master Heo do the work? I am not even with the young master!” She rashly bellowed to his face, making him shut up and behave. Once she decided not to waste any more time in this room and rush up to the household, she was stern. 

However, he was just as persistent. The moment she stood up, he nimbly pulled her down by the forearm, sitting her down once again.

“But you are lonely, Kim Yeon,” his slightly tilted head was directed to her, sleepy eyes searching her senselessly. “You are overworked and frustrated… Everything in between. I know that, I pay attention to you.” 

Suddenly, her heart felt like it ascended. But Kim Yeon knew better so she held it in. “You are drunk,” she tells him.

She just yelled at him after he tried to sneak a time of enjoyment with her, now she’s the one telling him he’s drunk. In a few moments, she’s guessing she’d be the one to lead him to his room to sleep as well.

What, are we married?

Yeon tried her luck again to get her arm out of his grip, but no matter how lightheaded he already is, his strength is still wavering superiority over hers. Every time she tries to wiggle out of his grasp, he pulls her closer and closer. 

“But it’s true, Yeon, right?” That made her stop from trying to escape him. He looked at her soul once more, and there was no turning back from that point on. “You are tired. So sit with me.”

That wasn’t a question, hence, her forfeit. “Fine.”

Jin only allowed her hand free when she used it to fetch her cup of wine, and drank it inelegantly beside him. He was quick to refill their drinks every time he knew it’s downed. And she doesn’t even take her clasp around it anymore.

“I know, I’m tired. I’m frustrated and lonely. But you don’t have to shove it on my face!” She yells, out of her bounds. “I am a mother now and not just anyone’s mother. A special and complicated boy’s mother! And I’m not even the one his father married,” she paused with a face that meant to ridicule herself.

Park Jin quietly laughs at her and fills her cup once again as he drinks his own.

Every cluster, she gets even more drunk. The conversation they were having was full of gibberish and blurry visions. She doesn’t even know what she’s saying, or which part of her bitter life she’s discussing—which piece of her soul she’s baring. She can hear her loud and high voice for every end of her sentences. She’s pretty sure she also sang something to which Jin just laughed at. He was just laughing at everything while continuously emptying the jug.

When she realized that he responded with nothing but laughter, she stopped.

A hiccup, before probably the first well-constructed sentence she has uttered tonight. “Do you… just find me ridiculous?” 

Her vision has been blurry and shadowy all this time but now, it’s just blurry. Her eyes were filled with tears as she looked at Park Jin, who still smiled despite the offense she was feeling as she asked him.

The fake-happy from the liquor rubbed off, and she herself smiled but it was out of spite. A tear quietly sliding from her left eye down to her chin where she immediately wiped it using the back of her hand.

“Right. I’m a laughingstock.” She scoffed. “Kim Yeon, a prostitute’s daughter, a no-match for her lady’s beauty and intelligence, a nobody, orphan, cursed, stupid, ugly, ridiculous–”

“No, you’re not.”

His swift intervention made her blink and pause. “What?”

“You’re beautiful,” Park Jin leans forward, his bloodshot eyes closing slowly each second that he gets near. “You are so, so beautiful…”

And finally, his lips were on her own.

She was unresponsive out of shock. Every fiber of her being lost from the control of the wine she ingested. It was like waking up when her eyes were open all this time.

Park Jin withdraws, yet keeps his face close. Their noses were still touching, and he was still focusing on her lips, obviously wanting to taste them once more.

His lustful eyes pointed to hers softly, asking for permission. Kim Yeon was still paralyzed and her eyes were stretched wide. Until the voice of her longing took over.

Screw it , her eyes travelled down to his lips. Red and tender. Her eyes fluttering with desire as she gave him her silent yes. 

We’re both lonely anyway.

She breathed shakily before opening her mouth. And before closing her eyes, she saw Jin’s throat budge up and down as he caught her lips expertly in between his own and started to move his tongue which she tried to battle with her own.

Yeon was almost his.

Chapter Text

"Kim Yeon."

She had a limp finger over her lips. Frozen, and staring blankly at what seemed to be an endless galaxy that's filled with things she's never known. Risks that she knows are a pain to take, but will venture anyway. 

Like how his palm felt warm against the back of her head, gently handling her hair as he scanned her hungrily another time around. 

Park Jin worked her top bun off, unclasping the only copper pin that fixed it in place so she can lean comfortably against the wall where he was pinning her against using his deep and demanding kisses. She was trying her best to match his expertise and is always giving an answer to every move he makes, hence the grinding of her groin against his own in an effort to show that she wouldn't stand still and let him have the domination all to himself. 

"Kim Yeon…"

At first, she didn't know where to place her hands. But thanks to his patterned gestures of where he likes to touch her body, she got the hint of where he'd like her hands on him. She effortlessly sneaked her arms from either sides of him and clung to his back, softly digging her nails on the fabric that still latched on to his skin, bringing him closer while not breaking the connection of their lips. Once she felt his rock-hard structure collide with her rather soft one, the kiss was broken. Both of them having elicited moans in unison due to the feeling of lust that heightened the moment she knew that some parts of her were already getting sensitive; and so was his.

She's quite certain that upon their crash against each other, he already felt her swollen breasts and that's why he rushed to work his way down her clothes. As he did, his lips departed her mouth, leaving it open when he started to trail wet kisses along her jaw and her neck. Yeon had to draw her breath more now than when she was actually deprived of air when her lips were sealed and the only thing there is to inhale is the smell of alcohol on Jin.

Luckily for the man, she was already in her sleepwear since she was originally going to leave and go back to Uk, so he didn't find it hard to strip her shoulders of the thin fabric that hid them. Her porcelain skin felt cold upon being exposed, but he made sure they were quickly warmed using his mouth. 

" Juin-nim…" she whispered with her eyes closed, so lost in the feeling and even impatient for the climactic moment. 

There was no stopping her. Not until he tried to reply to her protest.

"Dohwa-ya," he kept heading down, but it was her who stopped briefly. 

"Ne?"  

Yeon suddenly opened her eyes. The first thing she saw is an unfamiliar curtain around an unfamiliar bed. This room was not hers. 

It's not like she's surprised she'd be here, because the ecstasy of his kisses and touch belonged with her instantly sobered mind. However, all of the things he made her feel struck her all at once. 

She agreed to this. She's not too drunk yet to not remember a thing in the morning. She knows what she agreed to; to what she had consented to. But she was too much of a fool to trust that as much as she was sure she wanted this, he did, too.

Park Jin responded to her immediate and panic-stricken clarification by rising up and almost confidently saying the name once again. But he stopped when he saw how she was regretting it so instantly. 

"K-Kim Yeon?" His breath hitched, and he looked around. They were a mess leading to a bigger mess. 

"Kim Yeon!" 

She snapped out of her daydream.

Yeon almost bit the finger she had been tracing her lips with for the past few minutes when Master Heo's voice thundered in her ears. He had been calling her multiple times, but she was too far gone in her head remembering what had transpired over a week ago. 

"Yes, Master Heo?" She asked for a repetition innocently, returning her other hand under Uk to support his weight that she didn't even notice she's been carrying with only one hand all this time.

"Is there something that needs to be checked with you, too? Are you having problems with your ears?" Heo Yeom replied in a concerned but reprimanding manner. It was sarcastic, even. 

"Ah– no, I'm just…" She bowed down on Uk as she tried to find an excuse for her absentmindedness. Thanks to the young master, however, she had the chance to divert the conversation to where it's supposed to lead. "What were you saying about Uk again?" 

"He's fine now. You know that there's nothing Sejukwon can't treat," he laughed with such ego, making her feel safe with the fact that she's saved from explaining herself because he took the spotlight to himself. Even so, this doesn't make her any less worried about the little boy she's cradling. 

In Uk's few months of existence, he has been living in Sejukwon for most of them. The first month, he scared them when he vomited everything he had ingested for a day and did not eat for three more days after that. He's easy to catch a cold and his skin is also very sensitive so she only wraps him up in fine cloth and keeps the temperature accurate to his needs. Kim Yeon has never fallen short on taking care of him solely because of the fear that grew in her upon losing the people she loved. 

She loves the child now. She'd loved him since she knew he would soon exist in the world as a good soul. Aside from her job to actually keep him safe, she does it by heart. 

Now, he's been suffering from severe coughing so they couldn't give him what he normally eats since it irritates his throat. Only foods advised or made by Sejukwon attendants themselves are what he's been eating, and she has been more careful of him than ever. 

A big part of why is because her young master is sick but also, to avoid Park Jin as best as she can.

The only reason why she's not in their comfortable, remote villa is because Master Heo summoned them to conduct a checkup on Uk and give his permission for him to finally go back to the usual routine or diagnose anything else. 

"He's frequently sick, isn't he? Isn't that alarming?" She consults worriedly, hoping for comfort. She doesn't remember seeing an infant be this frequent inside medical houses. 

Master Heo clicks his tongue, "yes, yes. I would have to agree, that's quite worrisome. Mage children don't often get sick." He looks at the floor as if finding in his memories an infant he treated that came back in less than a month like how Uk is doing, until he remembered, "but considering his situation, it's not a surprise. Don't worry, Maidservant Kim, Sejukwon will take good care of him."

She nods both in gratitude and doubt. Sure, Sejukwon is indeed the best. The Seo family where Heo Yeom came from even had mechanisms to keep the dying miraculously alive. As much as it brings her relief that there will always be a sure cure for Uk, it doesn't help her not worry every time he's stricken by an illness.

"I'll be leaving for a while. He may go back to normal but I'll collect the herbs he'd need. Go feed him this porridge first," he gave her a lukewarm bowl of fine porridge as well as a silver spoon. Since she was already holding Uk in position and the food was served on a table quick to her reach, she didn't bother move from one place to the other. She's comfortable with it anyway.

"Wait for me here, I'll be right back," Master Heo emptied the seat right beside her and walked quietly outside just as she started feeding Jang Uk.

However, as soon as she prepared him for a better seating stance on her lap, he began crying. 

"What's wrong?" She dropped the spoon back to the tray and grasped him with both hands, looking at him fully to check if he was hurt by the shift in his position. Quickly, he quieted down and then looked at her only to laugh like a mad little man.

Yeon smiles at this. He's not hurt, it's just a mood swing. She should proceed to feeding him. But then when she dipped the spoon in the bowl and picked it up to land inside his mouth, he was crying again. 

"Uk-ah, waeyo ?" She shook her lap in a rhythm and again, returned the spoonful of porridge back to the bowl. Uk stops crying.

She pauses for a while, and analyzes the events. She then tried to feed him again, and he threatened to cry. As soon as she drops the spoon, that's when he stops and smiles again. 

"You need to eat this though, baby," she says as if he can understand. It was the start of thinking of strategies on how she can make him eat to be able to ingest whatever Master Heo is going to bring over. 

To her fortune, which is more of a misfortune, someone walked inside the door just when she thought she's going to need someone to hold Uk for her. She thought it would be one of the servants, or just anyone actually. But it's the person she's been trying to ward off for day.

The world slowed down momentarily for Kim Yeon the moment Park Jin let the light of the sunset inside the room, making a silhouette of his figure before he closed the door behind him and ever so nonchalantly walked towards her by the table. Before he could reach her spot, she's already struggling to stand up and carry the tray and Uk at the same time just to escape the situation like she's been doing for the past week. 

But now, he decided it'd be different.

Jin sat down, sliding the tray on the table closer to where he was. She was stunned by that, and couldn't have done anything more to stand up since he also pulled his chair too close to hers like the way they were seated that night they shared something they shouldn't have. 

"Uk-ah," he smiled sweetly. There came the deep lines on his cheeks again and the sunshine in his eyes. His right hand held the spoon, full of the soup she'd been trying to feed the little boy with. It was as if he was a talisman, because when he was the one who shoved the spoon inside Uk's small mouth, he had no complains. He didn't try to cry unlike when she did it. All the more reason why she could no longer escape. 

But still, she tried to. 

"I'll do it myself, Juin-nim ," she pinched the end of the tray and motioned to pull it, but Jin quickly pulled it back to him.

Wordlessly, he fed Uk more. He didn't even try to look at her. He looked like he was enjoying Uk's little giggles and she would be lying if she said that she's grateful for that. Honestly, the way she is so stiff is the result of finding him so attractive. It's like the image of his bloodshot, sleepy eyes that stared right into her soul projects over the sane version of himself right now. 

She's so turned on. They have unfinished business. Nevertheless, her teeth want to grit only if she could show that much disrespect. 

She feels Park Jin's hands on the parts of her he's left that certain warmth. For days. For nights that she felt cold on the surface, the memory of him kept her warm. The parts that he's kissed and touched with heat felt the same way and felt differently from the rest of her. 

When she looks at herself in front of the mirror, there's an urge to cover herself up. It feels chilly and strange but it warmed a certain part of her heart to see marks of worship down her shoulders. 

It was the first time she was touched as a woman. 

It was supposed to be the first time she'd give herself to someone. 

It didn't feel like he wanted to have her just as earnestly, too.

"You are quiet,," his voice cut her off from another moment of spacing out. For the sake of respect, she responded.

"I don't see why I should talk to you, Juin-nim ."

Respect it is. Respect for herself. She was satisfied by his quick, offended glance. 

He put his eyes down and cleared his throat shyly. "Is something wrong? Do you want to tell me about it?"

Are you serious? She wanted to ask but it was only for her to know. Her anger is seething. She would've been willing to talk to him had he initiated right away but no. Two days after he embarrassed her on the first night she could've been sent to a sweet dream, there was still no word. He would make his moves but they were too subtle that she decided she'd be the one to make the effort and do what he means to do. 

"You see, Madam Do-hwa was my only confidant. She told her troubles to me as I did to her. Now that my best friend is gone, I don't have anyone to tell them to," she was brave to mention Do-hwa's name first after it was last said between the two of them. "Again, I don't see why I should talk to you. Especially when it's all about that."

Park Jin nodded understandingly. There was a short pause before he said another set of words that broke her heart even more.

"I am your best friend too, you know?" 

"Pardon?"

Jin motions the spoon to Uk's mouth, and then puts it on the tray, refusing to look at her. 

"At this point, no one knows you like I do,” he flashes a proud smile at her, making her get the wrong idea.

What does he mean? He saw me naked? He didn’t see me naked. I wasn’t naked.

She composed herself back together for a bit, wanting to leave this place at once.

“Goodbye, Leader Park,” she carries Uk up since she’s sure that Park Jin fed him enough. She knows Master Heo expects them there still when he comes back; she will just instruct some of the servants to fetch the herbs for her. This is seriously driving her nuts.

As she successfully stood up, she was also sure he was going to let her be. But just like when he tried to escape his room that night, he stopped her.

“Kim Yeon.”

Her name. It was her name now. The first time he ever said it since that encounter.

Why does it affect her so much?

“Don’t do this,” he licked his lips. Nowhere to look. Just blocking her way is the best he can do. “You’re ignoring me. You’re avoiding me. Please don’t–”

“And you’re acting cool about it. So I guess we’re fine,” she headed her way again yet he stopped her by the hand.

“Are you mad at me? I’m sorry. I really am. I didn’t mean to–”

“I know. Like I said, we’re fine. So please let us leave in peace.”

“But what if we did it?” 

That was the first time he dared to look her in the eye with such eagerness, but she was the one now to decide it’s ridiculous.

“Don’t say that in front of the child,” there was a scoff that came with it. She was still smiling. But if he really knew her the way he claims he does, he’d know that her pain is growing behind her eyes.

She never anticipated that it would hurt this much to trust someone with all of her for the first time after a long period of fear only to be torn in the way she did not expect.

“Uk can’t understand me but you can. If we had finished the deed, would you have left my bed? Would you act as smug as you are now?”

“Yes!” She answered sternly to avoid her tears from breaking out.

This was the best way to go.

The exact opposite of what she’s feeling is what she should hold on to right now.

“If we did, I wouldn’t leave your bed. We would have discussed it in the morning and decided that it was a drunken mistake. A one time thing and nothing more,” she inhaled intensely, trying not to yell as she was with a child in her arms. “We wouldn’t be kids about it. Stop acting like you haven’t done it all before.” 

His eyes widened in surprise but that was all. At least all that she was able to see.

She expected him to still be nonchalant but why did it hurt more that he really is without care about it?

“Right.” He nodded. Then turned his back and became the first one to leave.

“I really don't matter to you, huh?” Yeon whispered to herself as her tears silently fell.

Chapter Text

The last day Park Jin was served some of her cooking was that day. 

That night, rather. And when she says it like that, nothing comes after. It explains itself as is.

As much as she hates to keep dwelling on something she said should be left in the past, she couldn't help it. She thought pushing him away and telling him what to do for good would benefit her and in result would help her sleep soundly at night. She thought that the discontinued heat would be pushed back into oblivion and never will bother her again. She thought that every time she would look at herself, it'll feel the way it did before he marked it with the first set of lips that has ever touched her own. 

She thought it would be as easy as that after she told him that this is the way they should be, had it happened or not— professional. Not kids. Not little lovebirds who'd think that one night together should resort to a whole life to spend afterward. Heck, that isn't even the way the younger ones think now. She expects him to know better, and she expects the same from herself, that's why she said those words she wanted to truly mean. But the more she tries to convince herself that it was just right for her to rub it on him like that, the more she remembers how he staggered back when she said they'd have decided it was a mistake. 

"It was a one-time thing and nothing else."

"A one-time thing…" she whispers to herself as she squeezed her lower lip, realizing everything now. " Aish! Why did I even say that?" 

She must've hurt him. That's what her heart says, that's why she's finding it harder to sleep than when there wasn't yet a closure to what they had. If this was to be called closure, then why does she feel guilty? Why does her chest feel even heavier?

It was a true statement. The likes of them are that way. Even the lower-ranking mages had women wrapped around their fingers and she herself is a living witness of how the members of the four families were worshipped not only as men and women but adored in all ways. Park Jin for sure had a night or two with some women and kept it casual. Add that with the fact that he didn't even try to reach out to her as soon as he was sober enough to apologize or explain makes her wonder why he looked as if he was betrayed. How dare he? She had all the right to feel and be that way. Yet here she is, unable to focus on her task as she eavesdropped to the servants just a few steps nearby.

"Leader Park wouldn't eat and it's been more than a week since. I'm worried."

"Well, when's the last time he ate?"

"I don't know. But they said the one who made his foods was different. I think he does not like my cooking."

"Or maybe he just doesn't like your choice of foods."

Her hands refrained from kneading the block of dough she was supposed to make some noodle soup out of the moment she heard them say that Park Jin hasn't been eating for a week now. 

She was always the one to make his food even when he didn't know it. Ever since she arrived at Songrim, carrying the gratitude of his protection and shelter for both her and Jang Uk, she has been secretly making his meals. She remembers clearly when Jang Gang mentioned to her that Jin was a picky eater and surprised is an understatement to how he felt upon seeing his friend finish the meal she made.

"Then how does he survive if he doesn't eat what's served to him, my lord?" She asks him. It was one of those moments where she was with him and Jin was with Do-hwa on the table as they both finished their food while having a chitchat.

"He will have a taste of each. What he likes, he finishes. But he sneaks to the kitchen at midnight to make himself something," Jang Gang chuckles. 

Yeon looks at him in curiosity. "He cooks?"

Another chuckle. "Yes, but exclusively for himself. I had a mandu that he made once and it wasn't as scrumptious as the one you make. But he was very proud." 

She can clearly remember how much her heart wanted to fly when he told her that. And those were also the moments when she wasn't noticing her mind, taking notes of the traits and likes of a certain person just because her heart belonged to somebody else. But yes, it's been a long time since she knew he was a picky eater, hence her effort to serve him foods despite the doubt that he actually likes her cooking or it's just that the moment Jang Gang told her Park Jin has never finished something served to him until hers, he was with Do-hwa. Perhaps he was trying to please Do-hwa and was snatching more time with her by eating together. 

And so what if he doesn't eat? He can cook for himself. 

"Right. He cooks." She whispers under her breath, "but how will he now? He's so busy," she bites her lower lip.

He's so busy that he couldn't even go to her and apologize the first time he wakes up sober enough to do that. Her heart still aches that he didn't, but it's going to kill her worse now that she worries so much. Why does she even worry so much?

"I'll do it." She suddenly says without context. The servants who were having a conversation a few steps away were startled by her statement. 

She just realized that they knew she was listening. So in order to save herself from the embarrassment, she looks down and uses her authority instead.

"I'll do that task. Just go and get some supplies and clean after me."

The whole time she was working in the kitchen, she was silent. Which is so not her. Every time she does something, she tends to entertain herself by singing or just happily gliding around, forgetting that her arms are sore from continuously pulling through threads of noodles or mixing a whole pot of stew. How can she blame herself? All these days, she hasn't been in her right mind. Always looking for the words to say and judging whether or not she should actually come to his door and speak her heart out. 

They have never been like this before. It's his fault for kissing her. That on itself would be awkward enough but at least they could deal with it as a joke, but no. This is different. She was feeling so special only to find out that the man had no real intentions of touching her the way he did. It broke her heart, but who is she to tell him that it did? 

Even though she's seriously wounded, she knows it will tear her worse if they don't make up. They've never been so far to each other and as much as she hates to admit it, yes, they're best friends. Their years of standing aside, watching the people they're in love with be in love with each other has bought them time to quietly memorize one another. It never sunk in her head before now, but as if instinctual, she makes Park Jin's food. His favorite ones, even, because she knows them. She knows the meaning of when he doesn't look at someone in the eye, or when he yells in a certain tune. She has even tried acting natural in front of him after that humiliating encounter and still, he was able to sense that something was wrong. 

No one knows him like she does. And no one knows her like he does. 

At this point, she's just scared she will lose the only person she can talk to in silence if shit happens in her life. 

There are tears in her eyes when she put out the fire and opened the lid of the pot of soup. It hurts her heart that he didn't even try to do better than a verbal apology to something he clearly isn't sure of, and it's killing her pride to be the one to approach him again. But what can she do? Even if she fights the feeling, she just can't go on like this. 

He's been present in her life for far too long to ever realize it hurts this way to not have him around. And on purpose, even.

"I hate you, but I can't keep doing what I've started." She stares blankly at nothing. "You're such an idiot, Kim Yeon."

She initiated it anyway. She was the one who was cold to him first, because she got tired of waiting for him to apologize without considering that he tends to be slow. Now, he's keeping it up and she's the one going insane. 

"Ma'am," Sang Ho was the one to greet her outside of Park Jin's office. His right hand, who has always been beside him even in confidential meetings. 

"Sang Ho, why are you outside?" Of course, she was dumbfounded. She wouldn't expect him there.

The mage scanned her group for a while, seeing that they're there to deliver food for the leader. Jang Uk was also brought along because she figured that if Jin used the involvement of the child to trap her inside Sejukwon in their confrontation, he couldn't say no if Uk was to be included in the narrative. 

"Is that for Master Park?" He asks politely, and she nods with a smile in hopes that they'd be permitted inside. But his cold eyes saddened instead. "I'm sorry for being the one to decline. But my master is currently having lunch in there. A visitor brought him food."

She was taken aback. "W-what visitor?"

"It's personal, Maidservant Kim. That's why he instructed me to go outs–”

“You know, Jin-ah, if you’re lonely, I can fix that.”

“And that’s exactly why I called you,” it was Park Jin’s laughter.

That brief statement said in a rather seductive voice made Sang Ho silent. And as if she’s not surprised and hurt enough by the fact that he has a personal visitor with him inside those walls, her body reacted to Jin’s reply to that flirty remark. If she were holding a tray of food or something else, she’s sure she would’ve dropped it. It was as if her core jumped that even her ever so expressive eyes looked like they were shot by arrows.

It’s only a matter of time before her tears surface again.

Yeon clasps her dress, putting all of her pent-up anger in the way her knuckles turned white around the fabric. She bows to Ha-yool as her last sign of respect. “We will get going, then,” she quickly turned around and fetched Uk from a servant’s arms, quietly walking away as the other servants followed after.

She felt Sang Ho's feet try to step after them as well. She saw how he saw her reaction to what they both heard and that’s why she paid her goodbye rapidly and sprinted away. It’s good that he didn’t run after her, because what will he say anyway?

“You’re stupid.” 

It wasn’t Sang Ho; it was herself instead. Moments after running away from the place she was supposed to be, she finds herself alone by the stream near the entrance of Songrim, talking to her reflection on the water. She cried her eyes out right after she instructed the maids to wrap up the food and come back. She wants to be out to the capital for a while, maybe give the fruit of her effort to someone in need, since she’s sure no one in Songrim starves. They even tend to ignore the food. They deserve to be ignored just as well, but why can’t she?

“You’re so stupid, you shouldn’t have done that,” she harshly sniffles and wipes her eyes, regretting how she even tried to make amends with the leader. She can’t say she didn’t see it coming, but it still hurts like hell. 

Was that why he had agreed so easily to her? Why he never tried to do something more than that? She knows it’s in his ability to acquire new women every day, but does he consider her one of them? He just told her he was her best friend… now what?

“He’s so frustrating, Uk-ah,” Yeon looks at her comfort, who silently sat on her lap and tried to understand her even when he couldn't. Uk’s best help is just to smile at her to at least lessen whatever weight resides in her chest. His little hands even tried keeping her tears dry, just like he always does since he was born. 

She took her time contemplating, and then getting herself back again. She has already been sensing the arrival of her companion and she can’t afford to make them see what kind of mess she is. And besides, they’re heading out anyway. She never goes to Chwiseonru looking bothered and this might be the first time she’s losing some smiles, but she’s hoping that by the time she comes back, she’s already over it.

Soon, her servants arrived, carrying individually wrapped food. One of them took Uk from her arms for the time being because she’s been carrying him for a while now.

And then they did not waste any time and started walking to the gates. But before they could walk past the portal, they were greeted by a familiar friend of hers.

Jin Mu, her lord’s pupil and right hand, had his eyes lighting up as soon as he saw her. The sweet man carried a bunch of cosmos in between his hands that looked already stunning from her view.

It seems like joy is finding its way to her before she even leaves this god-forsaken place.

“Jin Mu-ya,” she greets and walks over to the Assistant Gwanju who also took steps forward to meet her halfway. 

“Maidservant Kim,” he smiles, and lets himself in between her arms when she gestures for a hug.

The smile on her beautiful face appeared as she tightened the embrace, making them sway a little. “How are you?” She now withdraws to look at him. He looks better now. It’s been a long time since they last saw each other. Do-hwa was still alive then.

“I feel great. How about you?” He looks at her just the same, checking if something had changed. “You haven’t changed a bit. You’re still as beautiful as ever.”

“Gosh, you flatter me,” she replies instantaneously as a joke. They’re not very close, but it is refreshing for her to see a familiar face from outside these walls. Besides, no matter how rebellious Jin Mu was as he was staying in the Jang family house before, he was kind to her. She was the only one who showed him kindness anyway. 

She just noticed that he was always hungry and that he wasn’t permitted to eat if his master, Jang Gang, wasn’t done with his food. And what’s usually left for Jin Mu are the leftovers on his plate. So she always saved some for him and would sneak some snacks in his room. 

If she felt things right, he might be having some shallow feelings for her, even.

“These flowers are for you,” he shyly offered the assorted-colored blooms in his hands, making her smile evgen brighter at the thought of her wild hunch becoming more and more possible. “I dropped by the house but they said I would find you here.” 

As she took the flowers, she gave him a concerned look. “You came all the way here for me? That’s so kind of you.”

Jin Mu grins sheepishly, “no, actually, I was heading here originally. I just figured I’d drop by and give you flowers.”

“Thank you,” she puts her nose next to the bundle and smiles, waiting for any more words. Jin Mu was peeking behind her, and when she followed his eyes, it led to Uk; curiously and seriously looking back at him.

“Is he already our Master Jang’s son?” Jin Mu asks in amusement, and figures he’d hold the child. So he walks slowly up the slope but she also realized she’d be the one to do it since she can make the servant walk over and surrender the boy in her arms.

“Uk-ah, come,” she extends her arms, tucking the flowers between her thumb and palm. Jang Uk was quickly given to her and Jin Mu excitedly greeted him.

“Hello, Young Master,” he tried to catch Uk’s little fists to feel his grip on his thumb, but the infant’s fists were everywhere. He was trying to dodge Jin Mu and was already threatening to cry when he was touched.

Yeon thought it would be a quick mood swing, and that she could woo the tiny boy to trust the new person. But Uk cried so loud and only wanted her. Accidentally, he was gripping her hair in a mess and stealing her flowers. He has really strong hands for a six-month old.

These episodes are completely normal, especially to newborn people who are still figuring out how to express their feelings. Uk hid his head on the crook of her neck and cried there adorably, making her and Jin Mu laugh as they looked into each other’s eyes. 

“Uk-ah. why? He’s your father’s student. Look,” she tried swinging her body to the side so Uk wlll be able to see Jin Mu once more but he just wailed louder than ever before. “He really doesn’t like you,” she laughs, looking at the child and shushing him. Jin Mu tries to participate in making him silent and taps his thigh softly, trying to get his trust still. Luckily, Uk calmed down, but he was rather sleepy. When he feels Jin Mu trying to touch his thigh, he still kicks however.

A small set of fingers pulled on her hair carelessly, making her check. Her Young Master is really on the verge of sleep or he’s too pissed off to try to tell it. He was already fidgeting with the ornaments on her hair and the flowers he snatched. As much as she’s careful of him inhaling anything that could be bad, it floated away when she thought that her little Uk is growing up as a big fan of flowers just like her. He’s eagerly smelling it and shifting his eyes from one color to another as if trying to spot the difference.

“I think he likes them,” she smiles at Jin Mu, who once again tries to make peace with Uk. the boy still resisted, resulting to another wave of laughter shared. “We shouldn’t be spending our time here, Jin Mu. Have you had your lunch already?” She interrupts. The shy boy that she used to secretly feed appeared before her again.

Maybe Jin didn’t take the food for this reason.

“Actually, I haven’t yet, I was in a rush–”

“Uk-ah!” 

That intervention left them silent.

She just felt Jang Uk gone from her hands.

“Hello, baby,” Park Jin greets with a big smile on his face. He was now the one carrying Uk, he even kissed its head. The tiny one proudly raised his flowers but Jin pulled them away. Dropped them on the ground and stomped on them, earning Kim Yeon’s immediate aggrievance.

“Why were you playing with those? You might inhale its pollen,” he kept looking at Uk, fixing his face and checking his nose to see if there was anything stuck. But he didn’t say a word about the flowers he just ruined, or the presence of Jin Mu and Maidservant Kim both.

He instead chose to look at the servants who remained bowed upon his arrival.

“Is that my lunch?” He beams so beautifully. The servants looked at each other and at Kim Yeon to ask for confirmation, but their head was too busy being stunned by Park Jin's sudden appearance and involvement in the moment. Plus how he so disrespectfully snatched a child from her arms. They had no other choice but to nod.

It’s originally his food anyway.

“Oh, is that so? You can place that in my room now,” he instructs, and finally acknowledges Yeon. “Kim Yeon, why don’t you go with them? I’d like to have a word with you later.” 

With that, Yeon’s heart stops beating for a brief moment and continues like a race of horses. “My lord, pardon me, but I’m currently attending to Jin Mu–”

“No. He’s here to see me,” he shifts his gaze to the Assistant Gwanju, “aren’t you, Jin Mu?”

Jin Mu bows, “yes, Lord Park.”

“Very well then,” he nods, and then transfers Jang Uk back to Kim Yeon, who stood there confused. Sang Ho was the only person she could ask about what’s happening, but the ever-stony mage looked at the ground like it was the most important thing. She just instinctually accepted Uk in her arms before she even realized that Jin was the one who gave him to her.

The leader of Songrim was staring at her intently, but was obviously keeping another feeling hidden under his laid-back smile.

“You may go back to your quarters now. Expect me to require you later.”

Chapter Text

"Jin-ah," Master Heo breathes out an exasperated sigh, "what really happened to you and Yeon?"

He can clearly remember how that conversation went. His senior, who has always used his temper as his brain, was calmer that the lake's current the moment he felt that things between him and the person he's always been side by side with is going a little unsteady. Jin is aware that Yeom finds it awkward to show any care,but he does anyway. That, perhaps, is a trait he got from the Seo family. No matter how laid-back he appears to be, he will not hesitate to be there when things are near to crumbling down.

That’s why even when the old guy was startled beyond words when he told the tale of why Kim Yeon wouldn’t bat an eye on him, he offered his help. It’s to their fortune that Uk is always inclined with Sejukwon these days and Master Heo can hold immediate demands over him and his health. 

“I admit that what the two of you did was wrong– well, not exactly wrong but it wasn’t appropriate. Especially on your part. Did I hear it right? That you called her Do-hwa?” 

Jin knocks his head against the wall one last time before replying with such a sad, disappointed nod. He knew it would drive him insane to lose another person from his circle, but he never anticipated that this is how it’s going to feel, knowing that it was entirely his fault. His pain made her in pain and now it’s getting back to him twice as much.

Thrice as much.

“It was a drunken mistake. A one time thing and nothing more.“

“Stop acting like you haven’t done it all before.” 

He had been refusing the alcohol Heo Yeom was handing him. Even the tea that’s served and all the dishes prepared by their chefs were ignored by him. He was just staring at nothing, with those words echoing in his head.

Did she think of him like that? Did she feel betrayed? Why is he even asking? Of course, she did. If it was him in her position, he would also be offended by the fact that he’s giving his all to someone that has another man in mind. He’d have a ton of questions and would doubt his value. And it kills him to know that that is exactly the way he’s making her feel.

“But I really never did it before,” he says silently to himself, but it came loud enough for his companion before.

“Did what?” Asks Master Heo. 

He swings his eyes to the alcoholic mage. “I have never entered a casual relationship with anyone.”

But it was considered a joke, earning Yeom’s chuckle. “Haven’t you?”

“Master Heo!” He defends himself, pouting, “You liked me more than Jang Gang for a reason. You know I don’t play around.”

“Ah, yes, aigoo, you Parks,” he giggles. “Always settling for one heart at a time. But I think you’re an exception now.” He continues the ridicule, making Jin’s fist close in vexation. 

“How dare you? I’ve been loyal to Do-hwa even when I knew I wasn’t the one she’s in love with.”

“Did I say otherwise? And I’m not talking about Do-hwa, I’m talking about Yeon.” Yeom sips from his cup. “ Aish , Jin, you daft prick. That’s just one damn syllable and you couldn’t have gotten it right?”

But instead of the latter remark, he paid more attention to the former. “What do you mean you’re talking about Yeon?”

Heo Yeom sighs, and leans forward to talk to him closer. “You told me you don’t do casual relationships. So if you find her next to you the morning after, what would you have done?”

I would…  

Words are starting to form in his mind but they do not have a coherent, successful thought to them. There are no perfect words because there is no certain plan. It’s been days since that could’ve happened, and yet he still finds it hard to think of what to do. 

He’s always been honest to her. He never saw why he should lie to such a kind woman, so much that it has become a curse. He thinks that if he had to do that the exact moment it happened, he would’ve ran away. He would’ve made things worse. But really, his solution to that is:

“I’d greet her good morning then,” he was playing safe. Not looking at Heo Yeom and talking to the ceiling and the floor instead. 

“And then, after greeting her?”

He gulps. This is harder than a mage exam. 

“I would instruct the servants to bring some food over so we can have breakfast.”

“Okay, and then? If she opens the topic up, what would you do?” Yeom was moving closer to him for a purpose. He was putting pressure.

And Jin couldn’t handle it. He was not able to give an answer.

“See?” Yeom hits the table. “You couldn’t even give me an answer! How about if it’s Kim Yeon and that exact moment itself?”

Jin avoids eye contact out of shame, he keeps looking down and defending himself still, the best he can. “I know Kim Yeon. She will understand if I am not ready to tell her yet–”

“Of course not! If you refuse to tell her, trust me, she will wait on you. She will think that the two of you are going somewhere. What then if she finds out that you aren’t really seeing your life together? You could’ve hurt her worse!”

“How are you sure? She's not going to think that far when like me, she still has feelings for someone else.”

“Oh, so you agree?” An aggressive remark now.

“Agree to what?”

“To being casual,” Master Heo scoffs. “You’d leave her, hanging by a thread— guessing what you feel about her while you are so convinced that she isn’t thinking that way because she’s still in love with Jang Gang. And then you’d just forget about it, right? That’s what you plan to do.”

“But that would just prove what she thinks of me. It will not be any better than what’s happening to us now.” 

“Then do you have another solution?” Yeom consults yet again, not giving up his argument.

Despite the fact that he might actually be stuck in that situation, he hated the thought of it. He likes to believe that in time, he will be able to be content with what they have and finally settle if he wasn’t able to do that earlier.

But knowing that he will insist on sticking with her anyway, what could go wrong? 

Jin takes a big breath, and with all confidence says, “I will ask her to marry me.”

Master Heo was dumbfounded, blinking. “Sorry?”

“Yeon and I have known each other for a long time. And just like you said, we’re practically Uk’s parents. I don’t really see a problem with spending the rest of my life with her, if that’s what it takes.”

Before he can even complete the thought of his explanation, however, Yeom was already hitting his chest, struggling to breathe. “ Aigoo, you’re a hopeless moron.”

Jin glances in dismay. “What? You asked me for another solution. That’s what I think is best.”

“Do you really not get my point? Where did your big brain go?” 

His eyes widened upon being yelled at. “W-what? What did I say wrong now?”

Before Heo Yeom could lose patience, he still fought for some. “Fine, fine, let’s go back to when you said you’re loyal to Do-hwa,” his cheeks puff out a rapid breath. “Your heart still belongs to her, correct? Up to this very moment.”

With guilt and sadness, he nods.

“Until when will it belong to her? How long do you think it will take?”

As if blown by the wind, their conversation shifted from a comedic-heartfelt exchange to a rather gloomy one. Jin was silenced by the question; he knows exactly what his answer will be.

“You see how desperately I want to protect her son, right?” His voice got weak, “I guess until I am still able to see Uk, I will keep my heart sealed in his mother’s hands.”

“And what is given at marriage?” Heo Yeom quickly follows through, and adds immediately just for him to not misunderstand. “Aside from rings made out of the same stone, or a customized binyeo as a gift… What’s the most important thing to give in matrimony?”

This makes Jin disgracefully look down on his own realization. “...the heart,” he murmurs, completely ashamed.

“What a shame to give Kim Yeon nothing in exchange for hers, no?”

That has been the end of their lesson. The end of his countless questions about that certain issue he did not understand completely. What followed was another set of guilt-filled inquiries. Which, to Heo Yeom’s luck, are somewhat likeable and fulfilling in his part.

“Are you saying that either way, I would have hurt her?” 

A breath of relief that he now gets it, “yes. Either way would take time, to which you have damned yourself from having.”

Jin’s face became pale, “what do I do now?”

He truly, truly couldn’t bear the thought that she would part from him.

“Do you care for her?” Yeom inquires, “excluding Jang Uk from the portrait, do you care for Kim Yeon at all?”

“Of course I do,” he said that without hesitations, without pause.

“Then do better.” Master Heo pours himself another cup. “By now, she’s still expecting you to do something else to win her back. It’s just a matter of time before she stops waiting and you don’t want it to go there.”

Jin can hear the change in Yeom’s tone of speaking so he was already alert. “Aren’t you drunk already–”

“I know these things because I was the one who failed to end up with anyone at all.” There was bitterness in his intervention. “Now you know why I like setting up the table. So heed my advice and think of how you’d make it up to her. What does she like? What will secure you a sure spot in her forgiveness?”

Just then did the thought of her drunk self sorting out her dreams in front of him as he stared flashed before his eyes. 

“I really believed in shooting stars before, but they were always failing me,” her red nose sniffles back her tears and replaces it with her laughter. “But I would love to believe in them again. I want to see one, and then I will wish for a million more. In different colors and shaped like flowers. They’d be beautiful, don’t you agree?”

“A million shooting stars,” he says under his breath.

“What?” Heo Yeom wanted to hear it but even his voice was too faint for when Jin started searching in his mind the perfect thing to give.

“Fireworks.”

He quickly finds himself in his office, face to face with the playful mage who liked inventing and practicing celestial spells and applying them on objects.

it’s not exactly sorcery. It’s just mere joy that drives her to do what she does, no other agenda than that. 

Wang Shin, one of the most playful and unpredictable yet kind mage he has been in training with before even brought foods.

“You know, Jin-ah, if you’re lonely, I can fix that.”

“And that’s exactly why I called you,” he laughs.

Shin squints at him. “Exactly for what?”

“By chance… do you make flower-shaped fireworks?”

Chapter Text

“What could the Assistant Gwanju of Cheonbugwan’s business in Songrim be?” Park Jin asks, inside his formal office now and not in one of his private dining chambers where he unusually took his earlier guest.

This was not supposed to be the situation. He’s not supposed to be sitting here, silently gritting his teeth and trying to hold himself together in great control of his temper, praying to God he won’t impulsively kill the only other person that’s with him in this room.

When Sang Ho intervened with his discussion with Wang Shin, telling him all about Jin Mu’s urgent arrival at Songrim and Kim Yeon’s appearance not long before, he only cared about the latter.

Funny, because when Wang Shin asked him what the fireworks are for, he was constructing lies and not actually heading straight to his cause, which was to apologize to a servant who he finds special and close to his heart. Being training mates for years had him knowing what is waiting for him if he tells the truth. Not that it would spite him so much, but it is his own validity he’s seeking. He can tell her that he’d use it to apologize to Yeon, but he knows how Wang Shin’s mind functions; she will just conclude that she’s his wife or something like that— which is not the case.

He’s not her husband and she is not his wife. And yet a mention of her name had him sprinting out of the room without even bidding a formal goodbye to his companion. So painfully alike to how a betrothed partner will react once called upon their other half.

Jin did not mind anything else when his heart sparked fireflies upon hearing that the one he’s been longing for all these days dropped by. He knew that there had to be some kind of divine intervention that happened for Kim Yeon to finally gather up her courage and make the first move, and he is in no position to let that get away.

However, everything faded when he saw her with another man near the gates. Not only her, but their little boy. And not only is it the man itself that made his blood boil instantaneously but the bundle of flowers he handed to Kim Yeon.

What do the two of you have? Are you someone special to her? Are you the reason why it was so easy for her to tell me that she could forget everything even if it actually happened? Those questions are what his mind echoed as he stared at Jin Mu who has already stating his introduction and the cause of his appearance. Jin’s handis hardening into a fist underneath the table, but as uch as he wants to think of this personally, he remembered that between lands, this is official and executive. He switched his mood to professional in a split-second and decided to listen even though there’s a voice somewhere in the back of his head that is already planning JIn Mu’s death.

“Jang Uk is going to celebrate his first year of birth in a few months,” those are the first words he was able to understand from Jin Mu, and it immediately caught all of his attention, mixed up with his current feelings.

“Are you here for an invitation? Don’t worry, I’ll send you the first one as soon as they’re crafted,” he says intimidatingly.

Jin Mu laughs softly, fakely. “Actually, I am here to discuss with you how the heir of Gwanju Jang Gang might celebrate his first and coming birthdays in Cheonbugwan.”

Park Jin’s stance intensifies. “Why would he?” He tried to remain smug.

“Well, because he’s Cheonbugwan’s future leader.”

“And?” 

“Are you not aware of the conditions that the assembly upheld way before this birth? If a child of a mage family has no remaining relative to take care of him, then it is just to decide which training ground he’d grow up.” Jin Mu elaborates further, making him scoff.

“I am Jang Gang’s family,” he stresses, although he himself is fully aware that it is an invalid wage.

“I do understand that you have spent the entirety of your lives together as best friends, Lord Park, but you are just as much a stranger to him as I am. Both Gwanju Jang Gang and his late wife Lady Do-hwa have no known relatives that could take Uk in–”

“And there is no need for that, I have already taken him in.” Again, he defends his right to the child. It hadn’t been an hour since he showed how overprotective he is of Jang Uk in front of Jin Mu. Although he knows that the assistant of his best friend is not the one he should be proving his credibility to, he’s doing so anyway just because of how he feels towards the person.

He wants Jin Mu to feel absolutely little next to him. It may be irrational but it feels contenting to him that he gets to shed his being piece by piece in his mind. The picture of him being hugged by Kim Yeon is still fresh in his mind, so much that he’s sure it would drive him insane not to do anything to regulate it.

But as he thought more deeply about the woman and her earlier interaction with Jin Mu, another voice of his whispered something more rational and yet more heartbreaking.

Jin Mu continues to explain, and this thought continues to burn with more and more fuel.

“...Jang Uk’s permanent home will be decided on his first birthday, and Cheonbugwan would very much like to compete for his custody.”

“And why so?” His tone got deeper, more chilly. “Songrim is already taking care of him, why still intervene with his peace?” 

He knows one reason. And it's the worst one possible, because it would never have come from him nor will it come from Master Heo. There’s only one more person who knows about the truth behind Jang Uk’s existence, and in case it is Jin Mu’s reason for conveying this discussion, then he only knows that person to blame.

“He will lead Cheonbugwan one day, so I was thinking that it would be best if he’d be raised there. We are not short of talented mages and even I myself could provide his training–”

“When everybody knows that his gate of energy is blocked.”

“We could make that work. After all, there will be no one else left to have the seat so sooner or later, we would have to shape Young Master Jang into his fate.” JIn Mu reasons.

You could take the seat for yourself, he thought. He had sensed greed in Jin Mu way before, especially when he tries to get his own rebellious way around things whenever it’s not given to him. So why would you want Uk to have it someday?

There is a hidden agenda for sure.

“But you need not worry, Lord Park, Cheonbugwan will fight fair. Just giving you a heads-up, in case—and it will be— the unanimous assembly’s decision sides with us.” Jin Mu bows, “that will be everything. I’ll get going. Thank you for your warm reception.” But the darkness in his eyes hinted at Jin. Something was surely there. There was a secret he was trying to mask and yet not at all. It is as if he’s trying to tell him that he knows what little secret they’re trying to hide and yet were unsuccessful.

“He knows,” he weakly whispers under his breath after Jin Mu left the room. Jin heaved a sigh and tried to calm down.

“Kim Yeon…”

“What do you mean Kim Yeon?” Master Heo Yeom was panicking beside him as he walked quickly, the old man was even trying to match his pace.

He stopped and looked at Yeom. “Kim Yeon told Jin Mu about Uk,” it was plain on his face that he was mad.

“What about Uk?” Heo Yeom took a moment to remember, and when he realized, he could not believe it. “How did you say so?”

And he resumed walking. “Jin Mu went here saying that they might take Uk away from us. I know that his reason is beyond just that. And Kim Yeon is the only person who keeps a close relationship with him.”

“Park Jin, calm down.” Yeom yelled. “Why are you thinking so rashly? Do you even know their relationship? Would it be fair to just think she did it without even knowing the real–”

“And that is exactly why we’re heading to her quarters,” he says with a clenched jaw, not taking his eyes off of the road. His steps were wide and heavy, and whenever he gets this way, Master Heo knows it would be hard to stop him whatsoever. 

He tried anyway. “Jin-ah, you listen to me first–”

“No! We don’t have the luxury of time to deal with this later,” he says sternly, just right before he saw a servant of Songrim running to them in his peripheral vision. His first thought was it was for a polite greeting, and then that servant would be readily available for his orders. He almost instructed him to find Kim Yeon but the servant faced Master Heo.

“Master Heo,” he panted, “Kim Yeon is at Sejukwon. Young Master Jang is in pain and he doesn’t look good–”

The rest of it was vague. Because just like his earlier impulse, he ran away in the middle of a conversation. Now he doesn’t know if it was Uk’s name that had his heart racing or it was still the mention of Yeon and her whereabouts.

Loud cries was what greeted his hearing when he opened the door at Sejukwon. Uk was laid on his usual spot and for whatever reason it is, Maidservant Kim was shedding tears trying to make the infant stop. But Park Jin had deeper thoughts and darker feelings to care about that. He only ever stepped up to take a brief look at Jang Uk and worry about it later, he let the attendants of Sejukwon take over especially when Heo Yeom finally came in. The older mage knows his current plan but Uk’s cries were too alarming for Yeom to put him first.

It was him, Kim Yeon, their misunderstandings, and Sejukwon all over again.

The moment his eyes darkened when he looked at her marked the end of it.

“You’re coming with me,” he grabs her forearm and absentmindedly drags her outside, out of her will.

“Juin-nim, what are you doing? Let me go!” Her fragile human strength tried to combat with his mage caliber, which obviously rendered it ineffective. She’d tried digging her nails on the skin of his hand to make it loose around her wrist but he did not feel it even if it may have bled.

Finally, they were out in the open.

He turns her in front of a stone wall, looking straight into her eyes that spoke of fear of him.

“What relationship do you have with Jin Mu of Cheonbugwan?” His nostrils flared.

This did not take away the tears in Yeon’s eyes but her fear was replaced with disgust. 

She did not offer him an answer, but waited until she was free of his grasp. When she was, she tried to walk away and back to the hall. Jin blocked her once again.

“I’m asking you, Yeon,” he says.

Kim Yeon scoffs, “are you for real? What is this about, huh? You are possessive? You loathe that I am comfortable with Jin Mu?”

“That is not what–”

“Then what is it?!” She screams on his face.

For the first time in his life, he has heard her yell and it is because of him.

“Jin, youre being mean,'' a weaker voice. One that already broke before he could’ve heard that it was at its brink. “Can’t you see the situation I’m in? Uk is in there, suffering again from I don’t know what and I think I might just lose him any moment now and yet you are eager to put this nonsense first?”

That took him back to earth. The picture in his mind that he took of Jang Uk flashed before his eyes. The child was turning red, but his lips were pale blue. Upon his pause came more wake-up calls from Yeon.

“What do you want from me, even? You’re in love with Lady Do-hwa and you’re mad because what? I ran away from you and I told you that we would be casual? Now you’re being irrational about me and Jin Mu?” A hiccup, full of pain that he felt. “I am not acquainted with him in that kind of way if that’s what you’re worried about. Happy? I am not you. I do not play with people’s feelings just because I can.”

She walks away, taking advantage of his petrified state. She was gone before he could even process everything and look into her eyes to apologize.

He has been so shitty and he’s just starting to realize it.

“K-Kim Yeon–” he’d try to go after her but the slamming of the doors behind her was the only thing he was able to witness.

Chapter Text

"What's happening? How is he?" 

Everything she could ever think about is her little baby. There was no caring for Park Jin when she slammed that door behind her and what won was the mother in her. 

She's dying. She feels like she's already dying seeing Uk be this way. She's used to him getting sick ever so often but to see him in pain this severely, it's never been liks this for her. And it's never been like this for him. His little body is writhing in an unexplainable feeling that she wishes she could know and do something about. If only she could have it for herself and suffer it instead of Uk, she will. 

"Kim Yeon… I'm sorry." 

That statement did not help with how she felt. Master Heo and every other attendant looked like they were already grieving. The scene was so similar to the one she saw when her late Lady Do-hwa lost her breath upon giving birth to the same child she’s trying to save now.

Unlike that day, however, she didn’t hear Uk cry. There was no sign of his breathing for her ears to hear. Her heartbeat quickened as soon as she tried to make her way to see him and she almost fainted at the sight of him unconscious. If she didn’t see how his tiny chest rose and fell, she would have wailed. But everything that’s been confusing and frustrating her up to this very moment made her unable to decide which move she will make. If she was any sane, her cries would already be heard amongst all of Songrim, and yet all she could do now is hold them back and grip herself together to still understand everything that’s blurry.

"Why? Master Heo, why are you saying sorry?" Those were the first set of words she was ever able to say as a reply to the old mage’s apology as she pushed aside everyone only to be beside her young master. "What happened to him?"

Heo Yeom’s chin trembled. "He has measles,” and tried so hard not to show his hopelessness, but it was there anyway, darkening the room more than how the sunset made it shady. "And infants that age, when they catch it, there's no great chance of them surviving."

She was frozen in place. A single look at Uk and then back to Master Heo. "What do you mean?"

Of course she knows exactly what measles are although she hasn’t had it in her life, but it was the second statement that had her panicking once again. "You told me that Sejukwon can treat anything." She takes a step closer to Heo Yeom, her eyes twinkling with more tears, "you promised me Uk's health."

This is the thing she hates the most about herself. Her heart is easily broken, because she quickly believes in promises. She sees the good in things and decides to ignore what’s ugly. And when the time comes to moments like this, she’s always the one who’s most flipped and tripped on by fate.

And yet she just needs to hear another promise.

"I know I did, and we are trying our best. Right now, we've given him the necessary medicine. But we still have to wait until tomorrow to see whether he'd get better or–."

"If that's the case then he will be fine. You are the most renowned healers of Daeho. I'm sure he will get better." She cuts off, just for the sake of not having the negative eat her up.

Uk is going to survive. That’s what she believes and stands firm with. 

He will not die. He will not die. If he dies, it will be my fault and I wouldn’t ever be able to live with that. I’d rather just die as well. Silently saying those words, she was looking at the infant who looked like the calm before the storm. Rashes were all over his skin and he does not look like he will get better but she keeps believing so.

What happened? What did she do? What’s the root cause of it? Every single question visits her mind. She looks back to everything that has conspired but the whole of today only consisted of her heartache. She was barely with Uk today except for when they tried to drop by Park Jin’s dining chambers. And the rest that she can remember is only Park Jin after that.

It’s been weeks since that guy has been the only thing running inside her mind like she cannot function without the thought of him. Even if she tried, she cannot remember what transpired when she was with Uk and she blames herself for being so laser-focused on her own self and her own emotions to have been concerned for the life she’s basically staying alive for by now. 

If anything, she never lets his bath water be too hot or too cold. She only feeds hiim the foods recommended by his health specialists; his clothes are always clean and exact for his touch. She doesn’t even let any insect be around him and she had been vigilant with every one of his attendants. Nobody that she does not trust touches him. 

It’s given that he’s weak and gets sick frequently. But why now? And why this?

Yeom tried to make things clear for her still, “there’s still a chance that–”

But she has become a fierce tigress just trying to protect her cub, and faced the mage as if she was not beneath him. "Why are you telling me this? Don't you trust your abilities enough? Do you not believe that my son will survive the measles?"

Master Heo exhaled out of fear. "I am confident with Sejukwon and our ability to treat mages. But this is different. Uk is still an infant, and he's severely unhealthy. His system alone can't fight an illness this appalling,” he looks at the child. "This is my first time seeing a mage child catch measles anyway, aside from Jin Ho-gyeong's firstborn, Bu-yeon. It's unlikely for them to have this kind of ailment, except if they are extremely weak."

Yeon took that as another ray of hope. “But Bu-yeon survived.”

“Yes, she did. But Kim Yeon…” Heo Yeom looked at her eyes from underneath, like he doesn’t really want to say what he’s about to. “I am going to be honest with you.”

She swallows.

“Jang Uk does not possess the energy that Bu-yeon has. She only caught illnesses as a child because the immense power that’s supposed to live inside her is still trying to find out how to work with her form. Our Uk, however, is just like any other non-mage child.” The guy breathes out of utter worry. “If he doesn’t get better by the morrow, then we would have to–”

“That’s not a choice,” she says firmly; standing firmly as well. “We’re not letting him die. My Uk is going to live. He will get better. Tell me he will, please…”

“We’d have to wait and see.”

She’s close to faltering. “If he doesn’t… If the medicine does not take effect on him, there’s another way, right?”

“There’s no other way–”

“You’re lying!” 

That was it. She’s lost it. Yeon screamed on top of her lungs the moment she called Heo Yeom a liar, not caring whether there are people who respect the man so greatly are there to hear them. 

Before she could say anything more, Yeom instructed his men to go outside. That was when she became free to express herself but in whispers. Turns out, she’s nto as strong as she wants to be for him.

“You said Jin Ho-gyeong’s daughter survived because of her energy. Uk has that, too, right? He can have it too.” Tears relentlessly fell from both her eyes, appealing to him emotionally. Her hands were all over her head and her face, trying to keep up and think of a possible resolve to everything. 

His gate of energy is the only thing that could save him if the medicine doesn’t work. 

“You and I both know that we can’t do that. Jang Gang forbade anyone from ever opening his gate of energy. You know why it had to be done.”

“Yes– No, but he left the decision to…” She was still eager to reason out, tracking back to how that decision was made, “he left the decision to Jin. He should be…” But her tears won. 

Jang Gang left the decision to Park Jin. He trusts his best friend enough to know about that and to decide. But she knows exactly how Jin’s mind works. He's stubborn and likes to be fair every time and that’s why he’s the leader. It’s not only that, unfortunately. She was consumed by her bawling because she remembered how bad the situation was between them. There’s no way she could talk him out of it even if she tried because he’s mad of her.

Yeom stepped closer to her when she fell on her dress and cried, trying to rub her back and comfort her with his words. “We will be standing aside, we’ll not let him–”

“Leave,” she says, cold for a short moment and then she was crying again. “Please leave. Just go, please.”

She came from Wol Fortress, so she’s not short of knowledge about medicine. Women from that place grow up as healers and although she was but a servant, Do-hwa never limited her mind to just that. Every time her lady would Chris and learn all about it, she’s always included. Always beside her. That woman had a heart of gold, too precious and even more pure than the one that she has. And it’s killing her to think that the only thing she can do for the only living proof of her best friend’s life and love is to watch him and hope that tomorrow’s waiting for him. 

Kim Yeon never slept. She was tired and her eyes were too heavy for her own tolerance but she kept herself awake even if that meant she had to cry more. Uk would wake up every now and then to cry and she’s honestly doing her best to attend to his needs even when she doesn’t know what exactly he’s complaining about whenever he opens his eyes. Measles is said to be contagious but that fact was erased from her mind the moment she decided to carry him and sing for him as she swayed him in the air, with her tears flowing down at the sight of her precious angel.

“Please don’t die,” she pauses, lacking her breath. She then holds Uk close to her lips, kissing his forehead and whispering, “please survive this, Ukie. Don’t leave me, hm?”

Midnight came and she was strill alone in the iuncreasing darkness. Her only light was a single candle across the table and the brazier that she kept lit up in hopes that it would help Jang Uk if he ever feels too cold. The dead of the night brought silence. And she found herself sitting on the floor, with her knees bent close to her chest, her arms resting on top of them as she stared blankly at nothing.

That was when she finally, absentmindedly, dealt with her feelings.

“What relationship do you have with Jin Mu of Cheonbugwan?”

“Why would you care?” She scoffed to herself. “You said you were my best friend. I should have ran to you when this happened and we should be together through this, discussing what should be done to keep Uk alive. Why am I alone now? You promised… You said the safest place we could be is beside you.” Her voice tensed, “why would you be so territorial of me? I don’t understand. You’re in love with Lady Do-hwa. But you want to keep me to yourself, completely forgetting that we have a more important matter we should be worrying about.”

That was referring to Uk. He is literally driving her nuts now not only because he’s being too frustrating but because of the fact that they haven’t been properly speaking for so long and now this is happening. Every time they try to talk to each other, they just bring hell and quarrel. Now, they should be clear about this because this is already dealing with Uk’s life but she has already mustered up her courage to fix stuff with him earlier when she cooked him a meal and that’s all gone now. 

“ Abeoji… ” she calls silently, wiping her tears when she looked up. “Will you visit me just this once? I really don’t know what to do.”

She remembers her father: The one she wishes that Park Jin would be like. That person gave his life to her and he was such a good father. She was the first one who taught her love adn sacrifices and even though they weren’t living a well-off life before, she was happy. She learned to be happy and she knew that that was everything she needed in life.

The little girl in her cried, too.

“Aigoo, my little princess,” her father would pick her up so she wouldn’t have to cross the puddle with her new shoes he saved up for to give her. 

He taught her about half of what she knows in her life now, particularly what makes up her heart.

“Did you know that when dad was extremely little, I caught measles.”

“What are measles?”

“They’re bad rashes that appear onyour skin and attack your health badly,.”

‘And then? What happened to you?”

“My grandfather searched for another medicine because nothing worked for me. He went to a valley, deep and dark.”

That was her old bedtime story, which made her sense alive now that she remembered.

“Really? Where?”

“It was called Danhyanggok. And he went there to get a forbidden fruit, for it was poison. But it’s the only chance I have got left.”

“Geulimja podo,” she says under her breath. The forbidden fruit from Danhyanggok that her father ingested when he was little.

That’s it .

She looked at Uk, who was startiung to coo again and not long after, he cried so loudly. His rashes were red against the bright yellow light of the candle and that was when she quickly brought herself on her fee, collecting him in her arms.

She doesn't care about anything else now. She’s going to save this child with whatever she needs to do.

“Did you bury it?” A shadowed figure asks Gil-ju, a mage of Cheonbugwan. 

“Yes, my lord. Did you manage to plant it on the child?” He replies back with a question.

His master smiles, “I did.”

“I see. He must be in terrible pain by now,” he plainly says. He would not want to hurt a child, but it was an order given to him.

“I almost didn’t get to bury it under his skin. Luckily, his maidservant paved the way so I could touch him. Jin Mu laughs proudly at how that woman trusted her and even made the child stay still as he tried to touch heim.

“How long will the curse last?” Gil-ju inquires.

“As long as she keeps it active, it will.”

“But wouldn’t they find out?” He’s starting to worry. He may or may not have been seen by someone from Jeonjingak as he was burying the bone that had Jang Uk’s name written on it using pig’s blood.

“They wouldn’t, if you’re sure that no one would know where to find the place you buried his talisman.” That sounded more like a threat than an assurance. “Sejukwon might just make him worse with their attempts to treat him, and even if they try to open his gate of energy, it wouldn’t do him any good.”

“Why exactly does this need to be done, my lord?” He inquires, trying to understand why one would put such darkness upon an innocent little child.

“When Songrim and Park Jin are proven ineffective as Jang Uk’s keepers, then the assembly would have no choice but to transfer him to Cheonbugwan,” Jin Mu smirks, “and when they fail to make him better but we do, he’s ours.” He swings his eyes up at Gil-ju. “It is just a matter of time.”

Chapter Text

When Uk's condition was elaborated to him, he did not hesitate to stand up from his chair and run. 

He was, however, stopped by Master Heo.

"He's alone with Kim Yeon," the old man turned to him, stopping him from his steps. The tight grip on his scabbard loosening as he panted. "What are you planning to do with that sword of yours, huh? Are you using it on the woman?"

Heo Yeom was evidently upset, and it shows both and on his face and voice, with the way he said things to him. Jin could only ever stop on his tracks to clear his intention out. "No–"

"Then what are you doing gripping that thing on your way to Uk?" 

He never once heard Yeom be this serious and smug, it's like hearing the end of the world. 

"Have you lost it, Park Jin? Are you still using that big brain of yours?" The end of his sentence was for a raised tone, before he came down calm. "You come here at once," he firmly says, to which Jin obeys. The young leader took his steps slowly nd silently, back to his seat. And when he was finally there, he removed his sword from his belt and put it on top of the table. 

Master Heo breathed deep, three times before finally initiating a proper conversation with him. 

"This might be affected by the way I chose to become a healer and not a warrior like you, that's why I will not side with weapons. But why do you think carrying it on your way out to a sick infant and his pained maidservant who's as good as his mother is necessary?" He sounds like he's going to have a heart attack trying his best not to be so angered about the situation even though he is. "If I told you that there's an intruder who's trying to nick your godson away then I would very much appreciate that you leave this place even with a full armor on. But did I tell you that it is anything life-threatening? Yes, for Uk, maybe, it is life-threatening. But a sword and your face that screams murder? For who exactly, Park Jin?"

He was wordless, bowing down with his guilt making his big brain heavy every split second. 

"Kim Yeon is not as mighty as you but I'm starting to think that she's more worthy of being Jang Uk's legal guardian than you and Jin Mu ever will be." 

He told Yeom earlier how the conversation with Jin Mu went, and how he inferred that it's Kim Yeon who told that bastard about Uk's conception story. But that might as well be wrong now that Yeom is literally taking the maidservant's side.

"Her young master is suffering and I can see it in her eyes that if there's any way she could take the pain for herself instead of having Uk suffer from it, she will. She was begging me to do everything. She was believing every glimpse of hope I give her. And now, she's there, inside Sejukwon, probably mourning him earlier. And when I told you all about it, your first impulse was to bring your sword? For what?" He jeered bitterly. "What? You can't get a hold of your personal feelings? You're still dwelling on the fact that you are nothing to her, that's why you're trying to suspect her of something else just so you can think badly of her? What kind of person are you? When we arrived at Sejukwon, did you even focus on Uk? No! Where were you? You were dragging Kim Yeon outside for God knows what reason. I am deeply disappointed!"

"Master Heo–"

"What happened to you, huh? You used to be so gentle. I knew you'd be fancied by many because you're not like the other mages who brag about their masculinity. You know what? You're worse," a finger pointed at him. "I am trying to inform you about things that I know you never knew about but this is getting tiring. I can't be considering your slow-wittedness forever." Heo Yeom stood up and became the one to leave without letting him explain, but there was one last reminder. "You do you, I don't care. I am not going to instruct you anymore. But if Kim Yeon weeps in front of me again and you are the reason, God forbid it will be the last time we'll talk."

"Fuck." He says under his breath, biting his lips. "Fuck, fuck fuck, fuck, fuck…" 

Just as sleepless as the standby attendants of Sejukwon are is Park Jin, inside his office at Jeonjingak and trying to put his thoughts together. Never in his life has he ever been bothered the way he is now.

He usually never pays attention to his emotional matters but now that everything leads to that, it's driving him insane.

This is his kryptonite.

He's all over the place, walking back and forth and hearing all of the voices inside his head all at once. One side is Jin Mu's, telling him the possibility of taking Uk away from them. One is Kim Yeon's, crying and telling him how she's not acquainted to the former. Do-hwa's last wish that was to take care of her child no matter what happens; Every part of Yeom's guidances to him, and Jang Gang's prediction of Uk's life if any of them tried to open his gate of energy.

"What do I do…" his hands were gripping the hair around his head. "If I open Uk's gate, he will live but he will have to suffer from his fate. But Do-hwa wants him to live his life, whatever it may be." He stopped for a while, finally able to collect his contemplations. "If I fail to save Uk from this predicament or if he gets worse, the unanimous assembly will label me an incompetent guardian. He's going to go to Cheonbugwan if I don't open his gate. But if I do and they still win his trial, they will have him at his full potential."

At that, he was crumbling down once again. He's losing time. Uk can die any minute now if the medicine doesn't work, and yet he needs more hours to finally solidify a decision. Everything interconnects to all else, and if he's not careful, he might just mess it all up. 

"If Kim Yeon weeps in front of me and you are the reason, God forbid that will be the last time we'll talk."

"He might celebrate his first and coming birthdays at Cheonbugwan."

"If you unseal his ability to perform magic, then he might not live that long."

"I want my baby to have a long and healthy life. And I want him to live it to the fullest. Will you promise me you'll help him do that even when I'm gone, Jin-ah?"

"Juin-nim…"

Amongst all of those voices, one became his solace.

Everything quieted down for a bit, and he just realized that he was replaying her voice alone in his head.

He thought that all of those conversations did not matter to him. He thought that as trippy as he was, there wouldn't be a memory to linger after. But his whole system remembers word-per-word. His eyes took back the picture of her sparkling brown eyes, and that bright pink blush over her cheeks and nose.

"I'm so drunk right now you're starting to look like my father," she laughed, taking in another sip. "He was the best parent ever. I'm still so afraid I wouldn't be able to do it like him. He gave his life for me."

"I have Uk now. I'm his mother now and it would probably anger you that I call myself that way but I'm afraid I can no longer have take-backs," warm eyes looked at him like she was looking at the love of her life. "But on second thought, you promised me we'll take care of him together. So that makes me less scared."

She inched sideward and gave him an innocent kiss on his cheek. "Thank you."

That made him freeze for a moment. The heat that her lips imprinted on his skin. But he was a dumb, drunk man who apparently suffers from short-term memory loss.

"For what?" He asks after she just thanked him.

But her dumb, drunk self also cannot remember why she thanked him, and expressed it anyway.

"For making me feel safe. I do feel safe beside you, you know? Just like you said."

"Kim Yeon," her name escaped his lips along the course of his close-eyed reminiscing.

"You took responsibility for Uk, so that makes me see my father in you. I hope you do not disappoint me, because it would really break my heart," she giggles, and then looks deep into his soul. "He taught me everything I know; made me laugh, made me happy, and did everything just so I could survive. I'd do that for Uk. And you'd do it, too, right?"

Jin swallows, "right." There's a bit of hesitation on that.

"Promise?" 

"Promise."

"Fuck it," says he, snapping up. "I don't care. He needs to live. What comes after that, I'll deal with later."

He had to go to Sejukwon, it was almost dusk but he did not care. He was not going to wait for twenty-four hours to cling onto hope that Jang Uk's system will cooperate with the medicine he was given.

Without anything in his hand but warmth, he opened the doors, still feeling Yeon's heavy-hearted grip on it when she threw it closed. Three breaths to make himself ready for another war he's mostly likely to wager down and then he finally pushed the thing open.

There's an open candle, and a brazier lit up keeping the place warm. 

But there was no trace of Uk nor Kim Yeon.

It was dead hour when she managed to escape. Mages and servants were nowhere to be found, not their posts. It's not like anyone can enter Songrim without a spirit plaque so really, no one worries for anything.

It's a four-hour boat ride to Danhyanggok. It's pretty distant to Songrim, but she was lucky to have arrived there when the sun is up exactly where it needs to be. She wrapped Uk in a warm fabric, then hung him securely attached on her back as she started her venture finding what they call "shadow grapes", a forbidden fruit, and one of the most dangerous poisons that cam only be found atop the great height of the valley. 

She's not so athletic herself. Like Uk, she does not posses the energy of a mage, so it's given for her to get tired and sore easily, specially considering her sleeplessness and starvation. The last time she slept and ate were both at the same night, but she chose to keep going without pause, even when Jang Uk gets heavier every time she ascends to a higher elevation.

"We should be near," she says to her little one reassuringly after another couple of hours trying to find the fruit. Her heart aches at the fact that even Uk hasn't eaten anything since yesterday afternoon, before he started crying relentlessly and having rashes appear on his skin. 

Yeon would then stop every now and then to some trees to provide them shade. She's the only one getting tired of hiking but she takes those pauses thinking that the infant on her back is panting, too. There is a stream of clear water encompassing the line that separates the valley from the lake and that's where she gets her water. Fruit-bearing trees have also, as if by fate, shown themselves so she could at least give Uk something to feed on. 

Going up and high, she would repeat that cycle. Until it was almost time. An hour left before Uk's measles appeared yesterday, and she was still miles away from that tree.

She does not feel him complain or cry, or do anything at all. At first it delivered hope in her because she thought that the medicine worked. But then it frightened her that even his breathing, she can't feel.

Quickly, she untangled the tie on her chest and brought him in front of her. Uk was as limp as a wet piece of paper. He was extremely cold, wnd the rashes he had on his skin were swollen and had incisions around them.

Just as she was about to panic, she saw the corners of his nails lose their skin snd bleed and Uk woke up in wails.

"What's happening to you?" Het voice was so small out of frustration. The hands that held him trembled as her entirety did.

He's not dead. But he keeps getting worse.

"What do I do?"

Chapter Text

On the third day of them straying under tall trees and living off of berries and improvised fire she has made with her own bare hands, her young master has been staying alive. With bruises and burns and cuts all over his tiny physique. It's not any good, but at least he's breathing. 

Everything that shows up, she tries to remediate with herbs that she finds all over the place. She has found and taken some of the grapes she was originally trying to obtain when she went here with Uk, but there was no use for them unless she just goes off the edge and decides to take her life. 

However, that is not an option either, because Jang Uk is fighting for his life and so must she.

Kim Yeon's decision of coming to Danhyanggok was rather impulsive because it was the only thing she could do at that moment and her mind wouldn’t help her think of other things and other solutions. Although she’s lost her way on this dark valley, there’s no big, foolish regret out of it because until now, she doesn’t think there was a better solution to her previous dilemma which has now become bigger than what she feared.

No, she contradicts quietly. Her greatest fear was seeing her little boy die, and yet it did not happen. As long as he’s breathing, even with the worst disease in nthe world, she’d keep hoping for another day. She’d keep finding a cure out of it. As long as she can keep him alive.

That is why even if she doesn’t know now where her way home is, she stands a survivor of the cold and the starvation it has brought them. In fact, she may or may not think that this is a better way of spending her days with Uk instead of going back to Songrim or anywhere near that place. This way, she only gets to think about her son and herself. If there is any way at all that they could catch a boat ride, she is not even going to go back in the arms of the mage she hates the most right now.

She knows that it is wrong to put their personal feelings mixed up with their responsibilities for the child. But the thing itself is the reason why she’s in this screwed up situation anyway. Park Jin did it first, there’s no use for her to show him that it isn’t the right thing to do.

“Safest place my ass,” she tells herself as she meant to stop in the middle of the clear, diagonal field. There weren’t many trees and definitely more room for a bonfire and an improvised bedding just for her and Uk to fit into. She wouldn’t recommend stopping on her tracks and forgetting where she went in the morning but she has given up on that. She keeps getting lost no matter what she does. Lost and tired. It’s not like she’s the only one here trying to get out. Uk is also with her, and she needs to check on him every little while.

Honestly, this is her just trying to keep her sanity and bringing out the confident, positive soul that lives in the corners of her for every time she takes a look at the helpless little baby, she feels like losing it. SHe’s just grateful that he is alive, but it wouldn’t satisfy her for him to stay this way. The most sought-after plan is getting out of this God-forsaken place and going to another mage, maybe. She doesn’t care if the decision of opening Jang Uk’s gate of energy is in Jin’s hands, it is most needed right now and most certainly forbidden for her to even speak of.

She lays Uk down on the top layer of her skirt that she’s been using to lay him down. Her plan is to leave him there and go just to a safe distance where she can hear him and tell whether he’s still safe or not to collect some firewood and perhaps cut down a few leaves she can use to make a bed for herself. There was a hesitation in her and a bad feeling. But over the course of her roaming around here, she hasn’t found anything threatening. Not just yet. Until she was finally in the midst of entering the forest, and she heard a series of strong and serious barks from the place where she had left Jang Uk.

Running for her dear life, she almost falls and stumbles over stones and would have ultimately landed on a grave if she was not saved by a hand that extended just when she was trying to grip on something to save herself. She was just feet away from Jang Uk. Aside from the life she had almost lost, the figure of a furry, dirty dog flashed in front of her eyes, all before her weak body was pulled up and twired by the same hand that grasped it when she needed it the most.

She saw a pair of dark brown eyes, calmly staring at her face that ultimately landed on his chest.Chopped up wood fell on the soil when she opened her eyes yet again to a clearer sight of him.

There’s a hat over his head, hiding his thick, black hair underneath. He was unmoving and most definitely calm despite her close death and the nonstop sound that the dog nearby them made.

“Is that your baby?” He asks her, while she was still unable to absorb everything. All she did was nod, and he let go of her, extremely gently as if he was afraid she’d break. And then the young man, perhaps her age, called upon the Sapsali that wouldn’t stop barking at Uk. 

“Gwigu-ya,” he says in a particular melody, whistling as he gestured his hand for a pat. The gentle giant wagged its tail and came to him without making a sound, letting its head be under his hand.

“I’m sorry,” the man offered her a smile. “We don’t often find people out here. Most especially not infants. I think my pet got too excited,” he explains, and then stands up, now with the dog following him around.

“Are you lost? Or are you camping?” He asks again, and she does not know how to answer that.

“Actually…” Kim Yeon tries. But Jang Uk’s situation is not something she can just say to strangers. What does she know if this guy is someone sent after her or something.

However, he looked back at Uk. RIght before she could do something about it, his gentle hands were on the child and he was crouching down to examine him. “He doesn’t look so well,” he says. His dog started to grow again and then bark, hadn’t he stopped it. “Are you trying to find medicine for him?”

“Well… We just need to get out of here,” the only thing she required herself to stay.

The man smiles once again. And for some reason, her heart says that she can trust him.

“But it is already very  late for a lady and her little son to wander in this dangerous valley, isn’t it?” He points somewhere behind her. “If you look closely, you can see smoke coming up from my place. I think I have enough food and necessities to cater to the two of you.”

“But, ahjussi… ” How do I know you can be trusted?

“My name is Lee Cheol,” he introduces, cutting her off somehow. “I do not have improper intentions. Come morning, I will help you catch a boat to wherever your destination is. Just please, do not offer yourself to the predators for tonight.”

Her mind is full of trust issues, principally coming from Park Jin’s mistrust in her. But there is a voice in her heart that told her to go with him especially after seeing him play a little with his dog and collect the firewood he dropped the moment he decided that his hand was for her.

“If he’s that gentle and kind to his pet and me, then he couldn’t be so bad…” she whispers to herself. “Just for tonightm,” deciding that she’d sleep with an eye open.

She picks up her little Uk and looks at Lee Cheol. “Which way should we go?”

He may have thought wrong of her when he had an impression that she was not an easy target.

Or maybe she’s just tired.

The lady, who said her name minutes before she fell asleep, stayed comfortable on his elevated bed. He thought she would be sleeping with an eye open or not sleeping at all but she looks like she gets comfortable pretty quickly.

However, he’s not.

She doesn’t feel powerful at all. He knows a mage when he sees one. But it’s so hard to trust especially when there are souls shifting around silently without their knowledge. How does he know if she’s another one of them.

That’s why he’s the one who stayed up awake. He waited for at least three hours after she has sunken to her deep sleep before he stole the peaceful little child that slept just inches beside her.

Gwigu barked at it.

“Shh,” he shushes Gwigu when the little boy was in his hands. He couldn’t risk any one of them making a sound. Not when the mother who seems like she fully trusts him now is asleep on his bed. He couldn’t risk her waking up to the sight of him examining her son further.

“Why must you bark on him? Do you smell his blood?” He akss Gwigu, like it could understand his exct words. He lept looking at Kim Yeon’s son and he currently looks hideous due to the incisions of his skin and all those red bumps. He doesn’t smell so good either. He knows Gwigu only reacts to sorcery but he’s second-guessing the situation. 

It’s either that his pet is justifiably a dog just as well as any other else, or some sort of sorcery is really going inside this young child’s body.

The mother is a plain mortal and so is the child. He doesn’t feel any drop of mage energy in him. So why must his pet be so eager in devouring this little form?

Lee Cheol, however, chose to dig deeper. He couldn’t just sense the energy and let go, nor can he just look at the child’s overall condition and be moved by it too much to pity him and let him go. But he can’t go too far as to examining him beyond the consent of his keeper who, weirdly enough, had a grip on is heart the very moment they met.

There’s a part of him that likes to keep her trust forever, even when he’s aware that the strangers that pass along his life are meant to be just that.

Maybe he can just call this respect.

“Good morning,” a shy greeting at the break of dawn. Kim Yeon peeks from the doorframe of his makeshift house only to see him preparing some bath water and on the corner, a pot of boiling water for some tea. Kindly enough, she fetches the smoking pot while he busies himself with something else.

“What are you doing?” She asks politely, still having a hard time talking to him casually.

“It’s bath water for your baby,” he said as he stirred the thing lukewarm. 

“He’s kind of sensitive to temperature, so may I?” She motions her finger to dip in the water to check how cold it is, and to her satisfaction, it was just right.

“This would help with his wounds. May I do it while you prepare our tea? His water might get out of temperature.” He says.

“S-sure,” and she replies, quickly fetching the infant from his station. 

Even after she handed him in his safe hands, she still was looking. 

It was his opportunity.

Stripping the child of his clothes, he noticed two things. One: the fabric of his belongings aren’t just ordinary textiles, and two: those textiles are produced in one particular place only. 

He proceeds then, and peeks at Kim Yeon behind him. Luckily, she was already all eyes on the tea he told her to make. He puts his attention back at the boy and conjures a ball of energy atop his coiled hand.

And then on one, silent stroke, the baby was crying.

There’s a thing squirming underneath the skin of his left thigh.

Chapter Text

“If it’s already driving you nuts that she and Uk are nowhere to be found, then why don’t you go and find them yourself?” The stress in Heo Yeom’s voice was evident, and Jin could only keep his eyes on a certain object he’d been keeping in his pocket for three days now.

When he knew of Kim Yeon’s disappearance, he did not think she'd be anywhere outside Songrim. He did the searching first, inside the fortress that he’d let them stay in. They must be there, he thought. But he had raided each corner, searched every room, and asked every servant that he even woke up from their sleep if their lady and her young master had gone there recently. When he was told that they weren’t there, his heart told him that sh emust be waiting in one of his quarters. Absurd and too high of him to think that she’d appear in front of his door to ask him for help while they’re in the course of their seemingly endless fight but that’s the only thought that could keep him from finally being mad. 

Heavy footsteps and affirmations of “she’s there, she needs to be.” is what he held onto when he came back to the place where it all started. He did not want to feel like it will all be a mess when it already is that’s why he stopped himself from literally taking flight from one place to another, hoping that if he took things calmly and stayed at peace with the hope that they’re there, he might still save himself from the risk of losing his mind. Maybe, if he believed in it enough, it’d be real. But when he slid the door open, there was no one sitting on one of his chairs. There wasn’t any pair of twinkling eyes that would look at him. However, there was another thing that twinkled on the crevice of his floor. Something he hadn’t noticed was there for all this time.

For a second, the feeling came back to him.

She was so soft and tender against his strong grasps, and he knew that even though he thought her to be someone else. He knew he had to be careful of every fragile inch.

Her scent was intoxicating him that very moment. Senses were heightened, and so was his hunger, his lust, but most importantly, his care. He swore he’d never make love to a person he does not love, so when he got so gentle and slow at kissing her and stripping her of her clothing, he knew that there was something more than his carnal need as a young man. 

His hands can remember where they went, what they touched. So when he felt bolts of electricity come from his fingertips the moment he picked up the same hair pin he took off of Kim Yeon’s head the night they almost became one, he was not surprised.

All he knew from then on, and up until this very moment, is that something hollowed his heart more with the absence of her and their little boy. However, he couldn’t personally do something about it.

For days, he kept sending his men for the search. Even his right hand, he had to let go out in the open in hopes that he’d be victorious in finding the most important people in his life as of the moment. But Sang Ho came back empty-handed. As much as he’d like to put his anger and frustrations first, he can’t. Being the leader of the home of the most talented mages brought him a big responsibility: being the one who must think most rationally. 

So he answers Yeom calmly.

“I cannot go after them, I am still–”

“You’re still suspicious of Kim Yeon? How do you know that she’s not the one who got abducted with Uk? The woman does not have any magic to keep herself hidden!” 

“I am already past thinking that,” and that is why I am way more worried than I am before. “I know that she can’t possibly hide herself so well from my mages, at least without the help of someone powerful.”

Yeom clicks his tongue. “Do not tell me you’re still trying to link her with Jin Mu,” it was bland, almost didn’t sound like a question.

“That’s just a possibility,” he stares fiercely at nothing, feeling his growing vexation towards his best friend’s pupil consume his eyes. He wants to believe that Kim Yeon is not, in any way, paying him her loyalty or anything alike. But what else does he know? What if she’s being forced into doing it? What if they have been planning this way before it even turned out to be the way it is now? He doesn’t know. It’s getting hard for him to think when he feels alright with her. He’s like being strangled to death whenever his mind tries to make her a possible villain. 

But still, he must consider every point.

“If that’s the case then I volunteer to be the one to go to Cheonbugwan and confront that–”

“You are most certainly not doing that, Master Heo,” he stops before the old man could even stand up from being seated. “I have my reasons why as much as it shatters me that I am not the one who’s searching for them, I don’t.”

“Which is what?” 

He clears his throat quietly and licks his lips. “We are already suspecting Jin Mu of being involved. And before it happened, he expressed to me his plan of taking Jang Uk away from us.”

Yeom blinks, “and how is that connected to all of this? Uk is most probably dead by now and you’re still not–”

“If Jin Mu is really the one to blame for this, then I doubt he will kill Uk,” he leans forward and encourages the man to listen closely. “He is trying to take him away from us, and he might be using this opportunity to do something that will make the unanimous assembly choose him as Uk’s permanent guardian.”

Master Heo’s eyebrows have furrowed, however, “I still don’t get why you wouldn’t leave Songrim to search for Uk and Kim Yeon.”

“I am expecting him to come, and not the other way around. If we head to Cheonbugwan in the midst of this matter, he will know that we are suspicious of him.” He envisions clearly everything that can occur after that if they are not careful. “If he comes here, then I will know that what I suspect is true. I bet he’s going to try to see if we’re under pressure and take the job from us so we’d be proven neglectful and him responsible. If I leave and find them myself and he goes here while I’m away, he would know. We can’t be too complacent.”

“Okay, I get you. But how are we going to find Uk and Kim Yeon? What will you tell Jin Mu if he does come here? What if he’s the one who hides them and discovers that you’re not doing anything about it?”

He does not have an answer, honestly. He was going to say that he’d leave that to chance but their door was opened by one of his men, and it scared him that it is the moment he’s not solidly prepared for.

"My Lord, you have a visitor," the mage bows.

"Who is it?" He almost jumps from his seat.

"It's getting tiring standing here, you know?" A yell from outside. Jin sighs in relief, realizing whose voice it was. 

"Let her in," he instructs immediately. And then Wang Shin was already taking her shoes off and going inside with something hanging by her shoulder.

However, instead of looking at him first, she looked at Heo Yeom.

"You, old guy, someone's waiting for you at Sejukwon. They look pretty well-off and powerful, and the woman is pregnant, you don't want to tire their feet out," she didn't even mind using honorifics or properly looking at their senior mage as she said those words.

But it was natural.

"You cheeky brat!" Yeom quickly remarked. Wang Shin just gave him a side eye. 

"Get used to it, " she says. "Get lost now. I need that chair."

"Aish!" Yeom wanted to throw fists, but she was definitely going to answer them. He left with no word but with a promise of revenge evident in his eyes. 

"I forgot to bring you food," her first words as she sat a little to his left, and then she swung her sharp eyes at him, "I brought the fireworks you asked for, though."

Another wild beat his heart performed. Why does everything have to remind him of someone missing?

Shin takes the strap off her shoulder and transfers the cylindrical thing on her hands before quietly, terrifyingly looking at Park Jin as she hands him it.

He motions his hands to get it from her palms, but stops in the middle as he catches her glare. "W-Why do you look so mad?" 

Wang Shin squints at him. "I am just suspicious of you."

"Why would you be suspicious of me?" He says like it was a defense and devoids her hands of the thing in one swift move.

"You look bothered." Her brows almost met, "you never looked bothered before. What's going on?"

"Nothing's–"

"Auntie!" 

Yet again, he was stopped. 

"Auntie!" It was a little girl, coming from outside. The way Wang Shin alerted herself to look back and see for herself made Park Jin realize that she was the "auntie" the little girl in red was referring to. 

"Yeong-ah, wae ?" Her usually cold voice was honeyed when she said that. 

There was an evident similarity to Wang Shin and that little lady. Both of them had cold, sharp eyes. Their noses were blunt, and their lips were rounded. The only thing that differs Shin from Yeong is the way she's already matured and has her own style and appeal. While the young one was still like light. Cheerful and bright.

"I found a friend!" Yeong announces happily. "She's just right outside. Can I play with her?" 

For a second, Shin was indecisive. "Okay, but who is this friend? May I know her first?"

"Buyeon-ah!" Yeong calls with her high-pitched voice.

"My lady!' A distant yell from a servant, who appeared running right behind a blindfolded girl— the one that Yeong called upon. 

Park Jin staggered back for a bit, but he was wordless. He looked at Wang Shin who finally gave her permission to her niece, with a smile on her face, that is.

When the two toddlers were out of the room with their respective maids, Shin faced him. 

"That little girl is the child of the people I told Heo Yeom about. The ones waiting outside Sejukwon?" She mentions.

"She's Jin Buyeon," he replies. "Jinyowon's heir." 

"Oh?" Wang Shin steals the cold teapot and pours herself a drink. "That's fine. She's still just a child that doesn't seem harmless to my niece."

"Right. Because I bet it's your niece who is harmful," he states as a quiet joke. But he was wrong to do that.

"What are you implying, huh?" Offended, Shin almost uses her violence. 

He just laughs it off. "Whose child is that, anyway?" 

"My half sister's daughter," a plain answer.

"And the father?"

"Some constellation mage from Cheonbugwan," she seemed uninterested in it, even somehow disgusted. But it caught his attention, because he thinks he knows the father.

"Is it Cho Chung?" His small eyes widened.

"Yes, I guess," Shin scoffs. "Yeah, no, it's him. Yeong is a Cho."

"Then why is she with you? Is Cho Chung dead?"

She chuckles. "Why would he be dead? Relax. I'm just taking her out for a little bonding. I don't really like it when she runs around Cheonbugwan, it doesn't feel right to me."

For a second, Park Jin celebrated his relief upon knowing that Cho Chung is still alive. Jin Mu knows about Uk, so there's a great chance that he might involve everyone else that knows. Cho Chung recorded the night sky on Jang Uk's birthday, so if someone decides that he shouldn't know, he might be dead for good.

Which reminds him.

"If either of your niece's parents die, she goes to you, right?" He asks senselessly, relating the child to his current situation. 

That made Shin laugh again, suspecting something, he's afraid. "What is up and why are you trying to make my niece an orphan?" She sips from her cup, "but to answer your question, it's not like it's going to be a great discussion in the family who gets to have her. Whoever wants to, they may."

"Which in your case is…?" 

"Me, of course. I'd like to be her guardian if her parents depart unfortunately." 

But that's not as easy as it is.

"But what if another member of the family wants her as well?" He follows up.

"That's going to be a problem, because Cho Yeong still has aunts and uncles from her father's side and they all seem to like her just as much. And if they decide to fight for her custody, I might lose. Because first, I am only a half sibling to her mother, which makes us more distantly related by blood. If anything, I could be considered a stranger to her;"

That would make both me and Jin Mu.

"However, I am evidently more capable of providing for Yeong. I have more assets than they do, and I have more time for the child. But that fact makes it more of a weakness, because they have spouses and other children and I don't." She elaborates, "I am unmarried, so if Yeong gets to be with me, she will grow up with just me. Which makes it a weakness, because if she grows up with a complete family that could provide her with a mother and a father and even other siblings, she'd be more nurtured and loved. That depends entirely on the kind of family that will take her in, but I have to admit that that's a great point loss for me."

Suddenly, a light flickered open in his mind, making him settle, more contemplative. 

"But that's not going to happen anyway so stressing about it is pointless." 

"But if you get married to a more influential, well-off, and kind man then you'll get your niece for sure."

"Ya, Park Jin. What is this nonsense? You know that I loathe men." She scans him from head to toe, while he’s busy looking straight, collecting his ideas. “You’re seriously making me question a lot of things right now. What’s with you?”

Jin digs a deep breath as he decides. It wouldn’t be so bad to tell Wang Shin what is going on with his life since the woman barely connects with anyone at all considering that she has a rather insolent personality. She has proven herself loyal through all these years with never being distant despite not being with him often. She’d still come and see him after her long ventures and before she goes to another one. Jang Gang, his best friend in the world, has gone somewhere he doesn’t know. He’s not on the best terms with Yeom. Sang Ho is too busy out there settling his dilemma. It would be too rude of him to keep it a secret from Shin.

So he speaks up. “The truth is–”

But he was, for the third time, cut off by another voice.

“My lady,” a panting servant calls upon Wang Shin, who seemed quickly worried. “Young Lady Cho Yeong–”

Before there was any information about her niece, Shin was dashing out of the room, on her bare feet with a sword in her left fist. It made Jin vigilant in a hurry and followed Wang Shin outside, moving as fast as she did. 

“ Andwae, Yeong-ah.”

It was Jin Buyeon’s little voice, keeping a careful distance from the edge of the ravine where Wang Shin’s niece was. 

The little lady had her red dress all dirty, sitting on the ground and digging something from the last few inches of land before it reached the short vertical distance to land on the bayou. Even if she falls from that height, she would survive. But her aunt was not going to take chances.

Jin stood beside Buyeon, safeguarding her just in case she thinks of running to the edge for Yeong while he watched Wang Shin speed up to her niece. 

“What is it? What are you doing here?” The sorcerer kneels on the ground and imprisons her young niece by gripping on her small shoulders, completely restraining her whole frame from moving as she scanned her from head to toe.

Shin's eyes stopped at the hands, where it had been both a mixture of dirt and blood. The fingertips of her niece had blistered from the rocks and every other fragments but the little girl seemed unbothered and desperate to retrieve whatever it was she's trying to reveal from underneath. 

"Auntie, I feel weak," Cho Yeong says with sleepy eyes. "I have to have that, or else I will…" she paused, sighing, like her strength is actually being taken from her.

"Yeong, don't do it! Don't touch it!" Buyeon was now in a state of panic, but she was not moving from her place, just close to doing it. So Jin knelt on the ground and held her from behind, the way that Wang Shin held her niece. 

"What is it, young lady? What is it that Cho Yeong is trying to dig?" He asks, concerned and keeping his eyes locked on his friend and the little girl. 

Buyeon shakes her head. "I don't know what it is, but it feels dark and bad." She shivers, and then faces him like she could see him. "Mister, please don't let them touch it." 

He looks up at Buyeon and Yeong's servants, entrusting the heir to them before he ran to where Shin and Yeong were. Wang Shin kept her eyes on her niece, trying to still talk to her and keep her awake. He did not waste a second and started digging until his hand felt something sturdy underground. 

When he realized that there's actually an object there, he quickened his pace. And in a matter of moments, an ivory-colored thing revealed itself under the soil. He pulled it out and felt an immense magnitude of magic in it. 

Just before he saw what it actually is and what's written on it.

"Jang Uk," he was out of breath, reading those exact words written with blood on the bone. 

Sorcery. 

"Jang Uk," a smaller voice repeated. It was Cho Yeong, looking like she had regained her energy enough to get out of her aunt's grasp. Before Jin could think of not letting her touch it, the little girl had already stolen it from him and stared at the name on it. 

He doesn't know if he's tripping, or her eyes really glowed blue for a moment before the bone burned on her hands.

"Jang Uk!" 

Kim Yeon dropped the pot of boiling tea only to run to her little boy who cried so loudly after she heard what seemed like a splash of water on him. But it wasn't only that, she is pretty sure she remembers a glow of blue around her place when the noise reached her ears. 

Lee Cheol was still holding the child securely on one arm, while the other was positioned familiarly. She's seen that type of form on Jang Gang, whenever he'd cast spells and summon water droplets from the air. 

"What are you doing?" She reached for him and carried him, completely decisive she'd run away. But Jang Uk's thigh had a glowing, squirming thing that looks like it's under his left thigh. 

"He's cursed," Lee Cheol says, like it was an every day vocabulary.

"What? What are you talking about?" She fearfully looks at his hand. "What did you do to him? Are you a mage?" The possibility made her more afraid. What if he's not supposed to be trusted? What kind of spell did he blast on her little one?

"I am. And he is. You're from Songrim," he affirms, making her surprised and scared at the same time. 

"Who are you? Did the leader send you?"

"He did not."

"Then how did you know?" Her eyes widened in fear.

"I was a mage at Songrim. But that is not what we should be talking about." He looks her in the eye, as if forcing the truth to come out of her.

She gulps.

"Is he, in any way, related to a powerful mage family? Is he a child of a great mage?" 

Still, she refused to answer. 

But he had patience for her. "He is cursed," he looks at the thing he revealed by Uk's thigh. "Did anyone come in close contact with him before this happened?"

Kim Yeon could only think of one person. 

Jin Mu.

"What should I do? Can you fix him? Please tell me you can fix him," she pleads.

"I could only do so much as to reveal that he is indeed cursed. But removing it is another quest," he says, and then explains. "This thing that you see under his skin is connected to a talisman. We can destroy one or the other. In this case, I can take the parasite out of him but I would have to sever his thigh." 

"But we can't…"

"I know. That's why I am asking you if he is from a powerful line. That way, I can help you take him there and we can start digging around the place. The curse takes time and proximity to work, meaning the thing containing his name on it should be buried somewhere near your home." He looks at her, and takes Uk from her arms. "If you came from a vast land then it would be hard to find where it's buried, unless someone directly connected to him goes in search of it."

"What do you mean?" Directly connected?

"A blood relative, in most cases," he replies.

She thought there was hope for Uk, but that statement made her even hopeless. There's no possible blood relative at Songrim that Uk has.

"So if you could just tell me where to take you, then we must go because since you are his mother–"

"I am not…" she swallows, and then avoids his eyes. "He has no blood relatives anymore. Not at Songrim." She starts to tear up again.

But miracles do happen. 

Something is happening to Uk.

"Are you sure?" Lee Cheol inquires, looking directly at the child's parasite that started to aggressively move. Kim Yeon looked at it, and they met each other's gaze. "Then why does it seem like someone's found it?" 

In a heartbeat, they were inside his shelter. Both are not sure if what's happening is good or bad so they decided to out Uk on the bed and wait for something to happen. Lee Cheol prepared his bare hands to cast any spell anytime, in case this gets messy. 

Kim Yeon, although frightened for the life of her little boy, stayed distant because as much as she feels everything, she can't process them. Not when she doesn't know and have magic. Every term said to her seemed like they were from another world and she's still taking her time to understand how curses appear to mean so little for the likes of them.

Every short while, the parasite moves more desperately like it's trying to find a way out. They watched closely as the wounds and bumps on Uk's skin appeared and disappeared and worsened in every split second. Until finally, they witnessed something bizarre.

His eyes glowed blue, like a wild flame in them before they closed.

And the parasite together with every rash on his skin disappeared.

Chapter Text

“ Eomoni, ” Buyeon called as soon as she felt her mother’s presence. Jin would want to be stoked by the fact that despite having no ability to see, she has a more active perception of things— especially ones forged with great energies—around her. But he couldn’t be bothered any longer, not when in his hands were ashes of what seemed like a talisman that he certainly saw with Jang Uk's name imprinted on it. 

"Buyeon-ah, what happened?" The pregnant lady, Jin Ho-gyeong of Jinyowon quickly rushed to her daughter despite the weight that's somehow depriving her of freer motion. She checks on Buyeon, and is ready to blame absolutely anyone if she finds a scratch on her skin. She didn't find any, but was still worried when Cho Yeong was carried inside Sejukwon where they were all at. The maidservants and a female mage followed the unconscious little girl whose dirtied fingers bled.

"What happened here, Park Jin?" She quickly stood up, ready to throw her hands.

Jin, however, was not in condition to answer. He was absolutely devastated and out of his mind. Does this mean that our Uk is gone? What about Kim Yeon?

" Eomoni, " Buyeon called again, sensing her mother's rage. The little priestess quickly held her mother's hand. "Leader Park did not do anything. I was not hurt." 

"But what about your friend, my love?" She softens to ask her daughter, but glares back up at Jin who stared silently at his hand full of blood-colored ashes. 

What did Yeong do? What does this mean for Uk?

"The ashes in his hands… Yeong meddled with it." Buyeon says, making Lady Jin stagger back for a moment.

"What?" The mother in her marched to Yeong, despite the girl being surrounded by experts, she still had to look for herself. "She doesn't look like she's lost a lot of energy, but what happened to her hands?" She picked up Yeong's left hand and stared at it, swinging her eyes at Wang Shin beside her. "Did she dig?" 

Wang Shin could only nod, trying so hard to stop both rage and tears from escaping her. 

"What exactly did she do? You have to tell me." Lady Jin says, directing it to anyone now who can say whatever really happened. "This girl is fine. You will not find signs of illness in her until she wakes up or unless she doesn't. You have to tell me what she did."

"She dug for a bone," Wang Shin responds. "Your daughter told her not to, but Yeong still tried for it."

"Why?"

"She said if she doesn't have it in her hands, it will take her energy away." Shin gulps. "Park Jin was the one who retrieved it, but she stole it from him and it just imploded into ashes."

The statements had Jin Ho-gyeong breathing out in relief. "She'll live," but at the same time, amusement and curiosity. "Whose name was on the bone?"

This time, Jin's ears were active. "How do you know that there's a name on the bone? We've never mentioned it." His rage was overflowing, so was the mistrust.

"Do not suspect me of using sorcery, Park Jin. I am the leader of Jinyowon. It is just that I know how these things work." She quickly defended herself, reading him like an open book that instantly.

"What good would it do if you knew whose name was on that bone?" He was still refusing to tell her, "can you tell me then if the person is still alive, if I told you?"

"The person is most certainly alive since the bone has been destroyed. But I am asking because for a body that young, it is impossible for her to have done that by herself through her own abilities if not divinely helped." 

Now, he was more alert. “What does that mean?”

And despite the blur, Lady Jin Ho-gyeong licked her lips for an answer. “It means that there should be a divine connection between–”

“My Lord,” Sang Ho appeared out of the blue. His dark clothes were stained with mud and fresh sweat was dripping from the sides of his head despite the autumn cold. Park Jin would have wanted to let Ho-gyeong finish but he just felt it in his heart that there was more sense in what his right hand has to say than what the reputable lady had with her. It could wait. She confirmed that Uk is alive and the rest that follows are not appealing to him anymore. Sang Ho on the other hand has been gone for days to look for Kim Yeon and Jang Uk. It is just that he pays attention because the mage finally came back.

And by the looks of it, he didn’t come empty-handed.

“I have a lead on their whereabouts,” Sang Ho stated. That sentence was enough for him to jump and fly to wherever it was had he not taken a breath when he turned around.

The mage raised a familiar fruit, steady in between the thumb and pointer of his left hand.

“Is that… poison grape?” Jin’s eyes squinted, almost disheartened about what it could’ve meant. But his mind directed to more connections, particularly the only place it can be obtained from and for what purpose it is used aside from putting someone to their final sleep.

“We have found raw footprints on the soil of Danhyanggok  where we have found an abandoned collection of these fruits.” Sang Ho explains further as another mage presented the said bag of those grapes.

“Kim Yeon,” finally, the name escaped his lips.

Now everything started to fall into place, and he was a bit relieved.

Aside from knowing how Jin Mu’s mind must work, he also knows Uk’s guardian very well. He did not anticipate this is how far she’s willing to go but he knew it way before that she will stand up for something she loves no matter how fragile she is herself. Jin Mu would most certainly not want to find Uk’s cure in the form of a poison though it’s believed to have cured life-threatening diseases. If he really wanted to protect his credibility to be worthy of the child’s guardianship, he would not touch that thing. Kim Yeon, however, is powerless to find a more promising cure. That is all she knows would work.

Her disappearance is on her. It was a choice and he’s praying to every deity now that she is not, in any way, harmed or worse—captured by men from Cheonbugwan. It has been the fourth day that they’ve gone in search of her and for someone who has an ill child putting her behind, she has been great at hiding from mages.

If she has managed to keep herself and Uk hidden from Songri mages, he’s hoping that she has done the same to any man who may try to surrender her somewhere unsafe.

“I have to go.” Those were the first four words he has ever uttered with his natural conviction since four days ago. He has not been able to move a decent set of muscles for all the days he hasn’t heard of the maidservant and the heir. But he was already rushing with all his long limbs outside Sejukwon, leaving everyone there without formal farewell had he not been stopped by the same informant.

“Lord Park, you have to postpone it for now,” amongst all the people, Sang Ho was the bravest one to stand on his way.

“What are you saying?” He repleis calmly. This loyal mage is his ride or die. He’d expected him to just follow along even if he were to walk through the gates of hell so he’s giving him the benefit of the doubt considering he did the exact opposite of what he’d normally do.

“I have bumped with Gil-ju’s army. Hopefully, they did not notice that it was a Jeonjingak mage who raced with their horses but I am afraid that they did, and they are with Lord Jin Mu, on the way here.”

Suddenly, Jin Ho-gyeong’s voice thundered upon the mention of her illegitimate brother. “What does my bastard of a brother have to do here?”

Park Jin still with gritted teeth. “I’ve been asking myself the same thing every time.” He turns around, facing her again, knowing well that she is not comfortable being around her half brother. “You should go. Whatever happened here today shall not be spread without our proper discussion.” 

Without any contradiction did everyone from Jinyowon leave, with their leader gladly walking in front of them in a fast pace. What was left in Sejukwon were only a few healers, Heo Yeom, Wang Shin with her niece on the birth, and him with his few mages who are preparing to go back to their formal quarters and pretend that the tension around the territory is not there.

“He must think Jang Uk is still here and we’re trying to treat him. We must head to Jeonjingak,” he instructs everyone and they followed. Regarding Cho Yeong, Jin Mu doesn’t hsve to know. He doesn’t have to care. He nods at Wang Shin and then leaves, just in time for the gates to open for an unwanted visitor.

Jin Mu indeed arrived.

“I see that you are here again,” he said in a sarcastic, nonchalant manner. His whole being is currently forced into behavior because his killing instinct is siding with him now, but he needs to keep it in. “What gives?”

“Well, I was hoping I’d see Kim Yeon since our last encounter was rather rushed, wasn’t it?” He gave a sheepish smile. A forced, sheepish smile, obviously getting all his fake intentions straight out of his mischievous eyes.

“I am afraid you will not be able to meet. She’s not around.” He smiles, as forced as JIn Mu’s was but more convincing. He can’t smile so genuinely like a full-blast liar when it pisses him off to hear her name from a coward traitor’s mouth. Especially when she’s wandering in a dangerous valley just because of his dark deeds. What if she’s been devoured by some animal?

He might not let this rascal steal his woman away but he couldn’t do anything if she’s to be taken by death. Even so, it makes him furious to have the man who either steals her or steals the last of her breath from her say such sweet nothings like he genuinely means them.

If Jin Mu really means what it sounds like, he will worry about that for another time. He can’t fight a guy over a woman if he doesn’t even know if she’s still alive to fight for.

“Is that so?” Jin Mu, in a state of surprise.

Real surprise. Not the one where it looks like he knows. But the next statement radiated exactly that. “Well then, may I just pay a visit to the young master? I would like to see him to make sure he’s well .”

Thousands of sparks of blood popped in front of his eyes as they sharpened like arrowheads aimed at Jin Mu. Park Jin leans back at his chair and scoffs silently. “Our Ukie is in perfect health,” he said that way too perfectly that he captured how Jin Mu reacted.

I got you all figured out.

Still, the Assistant Gwanju tried his luck. “I’m glad to hear that. May I see him?”

“What is really happening here, Jin-ah? What are you not telling me?”

Suddenly, it was Wang Shin. Inside Sejukwon, still beside her niece. She was not upset nor frightened, just amused by the way her niece has lit up an apparently powerful relic at her age for whatever reason. Yeong will wake up in no time, but they took advantage of her rest to talk about how his conversation with Jin Mu went.

“I was really aiming to tell you earlier,” he exhales like it was his apology. “Jang Uk, the son of Jang Gang… He’s being pursued by Cheonbugwan. And they’re going so far to obtain custody over him.”

“Jang Uk… the name my niece said before she passed out?” She asked in surprise, briefly swinging her eyes at her still asleep niece.

“Yes,” he replies. “They have used sorcery to give him a serious illness that even Sejukwon couldn’t cure. And on behalf of your niece, I’d like to thank you. After all, it was her who destroyed the talisman, for whatever intervention it took to do that.”

“Wait, wait, I’m missing some parts. Why would they want him like that? Why would they use sorcery on an innocent child?” She fixed her posture to listen to his answer better.

“I am not so sure of the reason, but I feel that they want him for something else. We can’t deny the power that the Jang bloodline has, they’re naturally talented mages.”

“And he’s going to be the Gwanju if they let him grow up in there. Why would they when they could fight for teh throne themselves?” Wang Shin says out loud, the same question that led him to a lot of right hunches. “Jin Mu doesn’t look like he likes being a lower-ranking mage. That rascal is really pissing me off. That’s why I don’t like Yeong there.” She faces him. “But Cheonbugwan and Songrim are both great homes for Jang Uk. In fact. Chenbugwan has the upper hand because that is his father’s territory so it is really better for him to stay there. What did you tell Jin Mu?”

Park Jin stands up, trying to avoid the question. He geared up with his sword sheathed along his waistline and prepared to leave.

“You cannot see Jang Uk either,” he breathes out.

“Why so? I thought he was in perfect health?” Jin Mu was trying to go through his walls, but he has thought of the perfect excuse already.

“i waa not lying when I said that. Jang Uk is healthy. But he cannot go places once the temperature gets colder, so they took this autumn to take him somewhere.”

Suspicious, Jin Mu follows through with another question. “And where could that be?”

Park Jin smiles. “He is with Kim Yeon, my betrothed wife. ” 

“B-betrothed…?”

And he shows off his dimples, proud. “Yes. They went to her hometown for our Uk to meet my Yeon’s relatives, and also to let them know about our upcoming wedding.”

To see the horror in Jin Mu’s face was everything for a second there.

“I wasn’t planning to let anyone outside of Songrim know just yet before Kim Yeon could formally inform her family, but since you already know, can you keep your mouth closed about it? Just until the invitations are made to be dispersed,” he winks. 

“Smart move as always,” Shin says proudly. “But you should go and get your betrothed wife and son before he finds out you’re lying.”

Park Jin mounts his horse.

“Someone destroyed it,” Lee Cheol was not taking the credit for himself. “You do not have to thank me so much, Kim Yeon. I was not the one who broe the curse.”

Happily gliding with a healthy child in her hands, Kim Yeon smiled wide. “Still, thank you, he’s so much better now. I would’ve done something rash if I did not find you.”

He silenced for a moment. Nothing but the sound of wind was heard between them two. He was looking at her delightfully playing with her young son like it had been ages since she’s done that and the world just slowed down.

He may or may not have drank his chaste tea this morning.

“Are you still planning to stay here? I’d be happy to shelter the both of you.” He offers, then realizes right away that it was kind of creepy and quick. “But if you’re planning to go, I’d of course, do as I promised. Shall I take you back to Songrim?”

“Actually, no, we’re not headed there.” She politely says. “I am afraid I can no longer go back. I’d be causing a big fight if I do.”

For a moment, he thought of her partner or if there is even anyone that helps her with parenting. He should be ashamed of himself then, letting the lady wander around alone with an infant making it harder for her to move. it is right for her not to come back there if he doesn’t care.

“Where are you headed then?” He started to find in his mind the place he left his boat.

“Do you know how we can get to Wol Fortress?”

Chapter Text

A warm personality and a kind heart first, her beautiful smile and eyes that momentarily disappear second, the way she could make scrumptious meals and set any place comfortable third, and a lot more that follows.

Master Lee thought that with all of that, she could no longer give him any more reason to fancy her. Her beauty is given. It's not like he hasn't bumped with beautiful women before but her shine does something to him. Even with all her clothes damp and ragged, her hair disheveled out of place, and her face devoid of any artificial color, she glowed differently in his eyes. Kim Yeon's physical features were just bonuses on the whole serving. It's her kind and loving nature that moved him. And since it seems like she already has everything that a man could ask for in a woman, he didn't expect she'd show him more reason to hope that maybe, since he's given this extension to life, he might try new things and not stick to his old lifestyle in his old body.

It was too soon to say that he's attached, and on the way down the valley right when he was about to take them to a boat to go to Wol Fortress, he was trying to stop himself from feeling the urge of following them there if not having them stay in this place. It's too soon, he thought, maybe my feelings are just bluffing with me.

But then the lady asked for a pause on their first mile. Her small child was already starting to whine and he worried that he might be hungry but she seemed to have known exactly what Uk needed at the time. 

"Can we stop for a moment?" She politely says, transferring Uk from one shoulder to the other. "I think my Uk is sleepy. He can't be sent to sleep when he knows I'm still moving."

He just nodded and watched as she found a place to sit on and concentrate on her little one.

She placed the boy horizontally on her arms— putting his head on the crook made by the joint of her two arms while her other hand cradled his back and supported his thighs, tapping one gently as she swayed.

"You are my moonlight on a midsummer night," she starts off as a soft hum, in a melody he's not quite familiar with. But it was as heartwarming as the midsummer she just voiced out. “And the cold wind when the blizzard starts.”

"My everything, and my nothing all at once.” 

The world quieted down, and there was only the soft gush of wind with her sweet, soothing voice carried by it to his ears.

“Will you bring me to your arms? I want to call it home.” Her song finally concluded, with Uk asleep in her arms. She remained swaying, however, but softly. Making sure he falls deep enough in sleep to not be bothered by her later movements.

She smiles and whispers to herself. “Works like magic every time.”

“That’s a beautiful lullaby, you have a beautiful voice.” He now enters the scene, standing beside her and looking at how peaceful her child had settled in her shelter.

“Thank you,” her eyes lit up as she looked at him, “that’s the only lullaby he’d respond to when he feels sleepy but doesn’t want to close his eyes yet or when he's having tantrums and wouldn't stop crying," she returns her focus to Uk, staring at him in awe. “Lucky, he didn't cry. Because if he did, I'm going to have to listen to him cry until he passes out."

"Why so? I thought it works like magic every time?"

That question of his had her pausing. He even saw the movement of her throat when she gulped and spaced out like she was too surprised to get an answer out of her tongue immediately. 

"Well, uh…" Kim Yeon licks her lips, speaking while avoiding his eyes. "His dad— I mean my husband — no. Yes. He… He's the only one who can sing him to sleep when that happens."

That quickly took Lee Cheol aback, hearing that she has a significant other. But more than the startle, he was concerned and infuriated. His wife and child are both here in the deep of nowhere with the both of them suffering from things he should be aware of and yet the helpless boy only has his mother who is, in this space they're moving in, as helpless as him. It didn't take long before he asked, "I am sorry, but I have to ask… If he exists, the two of you shouldn't be out here now."

“We’re not really on good terms,” Yeon smiled then hid her lips right away, looking down like it was something she’s ashamed of.

He got the meaning of the way she moved so he bowed just as well, “I apologize. I shouldn’t have–”

“No. It’s fine.” She stands up, “I think we should get going.”

“I thought that that could stop my heart from being moved,” he said quietly to Gwigu as they sat atop a tall tree under a bright, full moon— on a big branch that sturdily held them in place. He was petting the dog, scratching the back of its ear as it sleepily tried to listen to him. Master Lee had one hand under his pet’s head and the other playing with a bright magenta fabric that’s wrapped around his neck, underneath his beige robe. 

Before Kim Yeon finally hopped on the boat he offered to bring them to Wol Fortress, she gave her perhaps, most prized material possession to him. No one would anticipate that she's a noblewoman because she has torn all of her clothes from her just for the sake of keeping Uk warm. What kept her warm, however, was that scarf she had around her neck. He even refused to take it, but she insisted that when she arrives to Wol Fortress—which she will most certainly do, alive and well—she can get more of those and make them if need be. As for him, she said that that might be the last time they ever meet, so he at least needed to consider accepting that gift. 

Of course not, most definitely not the last time they'll see each other because he's going to make it possible in any which way, whenever he thinks the time is right. 

He wanted to make himself believe that he shouldn't be involved with her when he knew of her husband, which is, as it was cleared, existent. Them being at war with her obviously pining over him is a bigger reason, because he couldn't be convinced that a woman with that kind of light in her could ever unlove somebody who's made her feel all kinds of things as obvious to the way she reacts whenever the thought of him comes across their conversations. But then, he couldn't stop himself from hoping.

At this point, he is just contemplating whether or not he's going to let this longing feeling past him by doing other stuff and forgetting her or letting the time pass by planning all the things he'd do when he decides to find her and pursue her.

He's currently doing the latter while trying to decide.

In his mind are thoughts of setting a time limit and letting it decide whether or not she has moved on. It seems impossible for her to do that but then again, if her heart is that big then there's enough space for anyone that's lucky enough to be loved by her. 

He really needs his luck right now. 

"What if I come after her in three months? She might not be prepared if I start acting weird with her right away. I should wait at least that long, shouldn't I?" He intently asks the sapsali, who just wagged its tail lazily. "Or what if I wait longer? Just to make sure she's already moved on from her scumbag of a husband who didn't even bother to come—"

"You are my moonlight on a midsummer night."  

Amongst the trees and the quiet of the night; there came another voice aside from his own.

"And the cold wind when the blizzard starts."  

Lee Cheol's eyes brightened so suddenly as he moved his head in search of where the sound was coming from. He's sure he's heard it before, but it isn't quite the same. 

"My everything and nothing all at once." That was a masculine voice. It indeed belonged to that man whose streaks of silver hair glimmered in the dark. He was leaning by the same tree Master Lee was guarding. The very tree where he first saw Kim Yeon.

And when that man concluded the song, he realized where he heard it. 

"Will you bring me to your arms? I want to call it home." It was the same pattern of breath. Same intonation as the last line became a long silence. The unidentified man sung it in a lower tune, but the rhythm matched Kim Yeon's perfectly.

So was that sigh he let out. So was the way he weakly smiled.

This is him. 

"Please come back home," Park Jin's hopeless whisper. 

At the immediate recognizance, Lee Cheol was quickly disheartened.

"So it is you, Park Jin." He mutters to himself. The Songrim Leader is Kim Yeon's husband, may she have denied on having a connection to anyone from Songrim.

And he might've last seen Park Jin as a child, but even then he had been so slow and yet stubborn. He doesn't go without a fight, without trying. He's a terrible opponent. And a terrible memory to forget. 

No wonder how much it affects her to even think of his name.

He admits that he likes the woman, but still he chose the right thing to do.

He floats down from the tree and reveals himself to Park Jin.

Kim Yeon was awakened by a knock. Someone was at the door, like the usual. It's worth to ignore. 

Aside from her exhaustion and sleeplessness, the fact that she already understands the pattern of these dreams had her ignoring every sound. She's on a chair, with her whole upper body supported by only her arms on the table where she fell asleep watching Jang Uk cry relentlessly.

He misses Park Jin for sure.

Park Jin who, if she opens that door, will show up in front of her to kiss her like his life depended on it and touch her so hotly she will lose her mind. But that won't do any good because it's her dream, not Uk's. As far as she's concerned, she no longer wants anything that has to do with the leader. That's why she's ignoring the knocking. 

For a while, it ceased.

And then came back. 

"Tsk," she sulks as she opened her eyes and made her way to the door. scratching her head with her eyes half closed still.

The purple skies of sunrise stood behind the person she was just expecting.

"Oh," she smiles, hilariously. "You again?" A yawn. 

"Kim Yeon…" his strained voice wanted to speak of something, but she held the same door. prepared to shut it on his face.

Before she did, however, she still said, "you wouldn't stop haunting me in my sleep, would you?" Laughs and then slams the door shut. 

She comes back to sleep. 

This happens frequently. Perhaps even every night. She dreams of him. She dreamt that he talked to her ever so comfortably, just like when they were still best friends. That one she did not suspect because i  there it felt like it was just a normal day. It had happened and more likely would, for her. But the ones that follow had bothered her because there was no way it should happen. 

And yet why was her subconscious orchestrating it in her sleep?

She had a dream where they consummated that one night where everything started to become appalling for them two. She felt it wasn't right, but she couldn't stop. His phantom kisses all over her body was felt so hotly by every nerve she had, like it's happening for real. He never called Do-hwa, but kept uttering her name like a prayer as he did what he did to her in that dream.

That very, very inappropriate dream.

When she woke up from that, she knew that dreams could be difficulty vivid. She couldn't identify what's real and what's not whenever she sees a dummy of him and it makes her feel things both in her body and soul. 

That's how she found a way to escape. Every time she sees Park Jin, she considers him a fraud and even when he's not, she believes she'd still hold her ground and her decision that she has ended it with him. Now, her dreams are just consist of him chasing her because she doesn't want anything to do with him anymore.

Surprisingly, in this dream, after she closed the door on him, he did not knock again. He did not try to open it nor did he magically appear inside her house just like how dreams would normally work. 

Until another knock. Another calling of her name but this time, louder.

"Kim Yeon!" It was a demand with a motion straight to her door. 

She knew she was awake for real now. It's her neighbor's voice, and she doesn't really love waking her up like that but maybe, she overslept. 

"Yeah, that's just that," she lazily got up and answered the door. Her neighbor was indeed, there.

"Morning," she greets groggily, leaning on the doorframe still, but everyone else is thrilled and excited and some are even disappointed. She staggers back. "Why? What's the matter?"

And with those few words did she feel like dying and floating up above.

"Why would you let your husband sleep here?" The older lady points at an asleep man next to her cabin, on the ground and leaning on a stack of dried hay.

Her heart sores out just as her lips trembled at the whisper of his name.

"P-Park Jin?"

Chapter Text

“You are my moonlight on a midsummer night
And the cold wind when the blizzard starts.
My everything and my nothing all at once.
Will you bring me to your arms?
I want to call it home.”

Hate was an understatement for what he felt when he heard that song in the Jang family’s living room. He felt deep loathing, disgust, every ill feeling he was ever able to feel.

Kim Yeon was the one who was putting silly, unsure tunes to every word that that composition had. She was kneeling on the stone floor of the house, diligently wiping the polished wooden table at the center of the room and making her voice the only sound that occupied that space. 

He's sure that he swore never to admit that he had written that joke of a poem, especially after it had been transformed into a song by some servant, or at least that's what he used to call her particularly at that moment, when he was fuming with rage upon what she did to the words of his heart. He never anticipated that he'd never be able to forget how she made it into a beautiful melody, and as humbling as it gets, he never imagined he'd be waking up in the middle of the night to sing that song to a child that just won't calm down. 

Who would've thought that that was the invisible string that's tying him to her. 

"Where is my wife? What did you do to her?" He was preparing his hands in position, to summon water and attack. A mage so mysterious just appeared in front of him to tell him that he wouldn't find his wife there. No one would mention that lie, at least not in these woods. 

Unless she lied about it too.

He can't be wrong when he says he knows where that bright magenta scarf around his neck originally belonged.

"Do you love her?" Instead of an answer, that was what's replied to him. And it made his eyebrows furrow.

"What?"

"Your wife, do you love her? Or are you looking for her because of other means?"

I indeed am looking for her for every reason but that. That's what the back of his mind said that he didn't put into words. He'd rather lie again so it can go easier but there's a certain tug at his heart that prevents him from saying the thing itself.

"I wouldn't have spent three nights out here, starving and distressed if I had other intentions in mind other than bringing her home with me," that's what he said. The truth. But he tried to make it sound as if it's the answer to "do you love her".

"If you truly cared for her and your child, you wouldn't have let them wander here in the first place," a calm remark. "But that's not where I steer. If you are eager to bring them home with you, they're not here." The man just turned his back on him. 

"Wait," he stepped closer, motioning his hand for pardon. "Where are they? How did you know I was looking for them?"

And he looks over his shoulder with a sheepish smile. "That song you were singing… I heard it from her. She mentioned you quite a lot, not necessarily bringing you up because obviously, you've done her wrong. However, if it brings you any comfort to know, she thinks about you most of the time."

Jin was silent. For a second, he imagined her lonely face in his mind with his eyes wide open. 

"She asked me for a boat to Wol Fortress."

There was no hesitation in him when he ran for his life. He doesn't know how he got here and when, but he just saw purple skies with hints of gold and suddenly, he was approached by someone. 

"Young man, are you lost?" 

Honestly, he'd ask himself the same if he ever encountered his own self in that state. Sweat was dripping from his face after hours of fast-paced walking to nowhere and trying to get here as quickly as he can, eyes bloodshot from sleeplessness, and an obviously tired and hungry physique. 

He looks as good as a soul-shifter who has ran wild. 

But he can still talk. And he decided to use what remained of his strength to say…

"I'm looking for my wife," he was, at that point, indescribably weak. "She's about this tall, and she's with a little boy," he still tried to match Kim Yeon's description despite losing his consciousness almost.

"Kim Yeon?" The older man, about Yeom's age, returned in worry. Jin could only ever nod. "It's that house! Just head straight and the last to the left, that's where she is."

Park Jin taps the kind man's back as he steps slowly to where he told him to go. 

Three knocks. He was keeping himself still on the ground.

No one answers.

He tried to look down, and there was a pair of shoes that he knows are hers, so he couldn't afford to lose his hope. 

Three knocks. "K-Kim Yeon," his breathless whisper.

Three more knocks, and:

"Oh, you again?" 

Her face is illegally radiant for someone who had just woken up in disturbance. The subtle light made her glow, and that was the moment everything did sink in for him. 

He could go crazy for her.

Small round eyes that disappear momentarily when her cheeks stretch up, the rosy color of them that matched the tint of her lips… he was just staring at her. No one could look like that in this world aside from her and that's how he knows she's real. Because even her scent lingered in him like it's new. Her morning voice, her hair, her everything.

She was there. And his heart finally slowed down from the high of its roller coaster ride during her absence.

But he worried that he had just dreamt of her, and none of it was real.

Like he always does in these past few days whenever he manages to close his eyes for a while.

“Young man,” the same voice and the exact same words as he can recall from last night. If he’s not dreaming, then it might really have happened. But if not, those words must be the ones used to call him awake. 

Well, he’s awake.

Carefully, he opens his eyes and scans the place before fully revealing himself conscious. Unfamiliar faces wer

e all looking down at him and they were of different reactions. Some are in awe for God-knows-what reason, some are worried and terrified, suspicious, pitiful, a variety of them. 

He pushes himself up, prepared to escape the situation at any given moment. “Where am I? Who are you all?” There was even bigger panic when he didn’t find his sword along his belt.

“Don’t worry, you are safe.” A reassuring old woman put a basin before him, on a table. This setup is pretty similar to Sejukwon. “You are at Wol Fortress.”

Wol Fortress, he looks down, remembering. So I got here after all . 

That thought was for his relief. He thought he didn’t make it and passed out somewhere along the way.

But if he really is here now, then was last night…?

His feet kick up, he sprints from the bed, shocking everyone. He doesn’t know how many hours of sleep he has obtained but his mage stamina plus a dose of adrenaline is back and obviously, they’re not used to seeing it.

“By chance… Have any of you seen a woman and an infant with her?” He asks, catching his breath.

“You mean Kim Yeon? You already asked me about her this morning. If I heard it correctly, she slammed the door in front of your face and you decided to sleep in front of her place. That explains why you’re being nursed here instead of in her abode.” An old guy voices out as if it was comedy. 

It turns out that his dream was not a dream. Because that was the same person, and it was the same detail.

“Does she know I’m here?” He asks enthusiastically.

“She does,” a cold voice from another elderly person who sat across the hall replied to him. “I suggest you stay there and let her have her time to think. You’re an unwanted visitor here anyway, so unless you want to be kicked out this instant, behave.” She wasn’t even looking at him. Her eyes were out the window but her sharp words were pointed at him accurately.

A resident closer to him scratched the back of his head, trying to lighten up the situation by laughing. “I’m sorry about that, she means well, I promise. It’s just that your wife… She’s really not expecting you to come and I hate to meddle but I think she still holds on to her anger about whatever it was you messed up that made her deny you in front of us all.”

That made him stagger back. “Deny me?”

“She told us that you weren’t her husband. We didn’t buy it though,” another woman says, “Aside from the fact that she called out your name the moment she found you outside of her house, who else could be the father of her child that she says her son takes after? Your resemblance with the child is impeccable. Especially the dimples.” There was a hint of gushing over him at that statement.

Right after that was another exclamation. “What she didn’t tell us is that she married a mage!”

“A good-looking and evidently well-off mage at that! Where do you come from?”

But he could only think of how to get to her as soon as now.

“Are you from that place, too? What was that again? Cheonbugwan?”

“ Maja . That’s where her Lady Do-hwa’s husband is from.”

Park Jin might be persistent and focused but that name alone had him stopping from his tracks.

“I can't believe Kim Yeon managed to fish herself a mage, too!”

"I know, right? She must have gotten lucky."

"Do-hwa must have set the table up for her."

Another time and he was out of the room. They were busy talking all about that anyway.

Whenever Do-hwa is mentioned, he could only think of the last piece of herself that's left behind to be protected by him. He must always find his way to Jang Uk. Because he swore to protect him, more than anything in this world. 

Outside the infirmary, he found houses similar to what he can remember he went to last night. Or was that even last night? He was told he had gotten here just this morning. He doesn't really know his way around this place so he had to stop and stare and observe. Maybe he can find his way back to where he entered and start from there.

But there's no need for that anymore.

Rambles of a six-month-old noised from behind him. Park Jin turns around only to find a joyous Jang Uk already pushing his little self closer to him as the woman who carried him approached. 

"You're awake." Kim Yeon says blandly.

She let him hold Uk. They could've talked to the nearest private area possible but the child's delighted noises upon seeing his father invited people to come close. So what she did was let him hold the now heavier little boy as she silently walked them two to the bayou, where no one could hear the laughter of both Jin and Uk, so very happy to see each other again. She is not blind to not see how her lord's eyes filled up with tears that he was too firm to let loose.

Even so, even if it moved her heart to see them have a heartfelt reunion, she chose to stand her ground.

Kim Yeon composed herself, looking straight ahead. "Do you have any idea what we've been through?" She scoffs, there were her tears already but she can't cry this fast. "Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to spark a fight with you. I'm just asking."

"I know," he responds ever so firmly. "I know more than what you know about what happened to Uk."

"And then? Are you looking for a thank you? Were you involved in putting an end to the sorcery that he was put through?" She swallows, "Thank you, then. If that's all, you may leave."

"I am not—"

" Juin-nim , please," finally, she faces him. "We did not go through hell and come all the way here just for you to drag us back to where you said it was the safest. I don't think I could trust you anymore. Not when you refused to help him when he needed it the most."

"Will you let me talk?" His composure remained, though it was evidently in his voice that he's losing patience. "Jin Mu was the one responsible for what happened to Uk."

"What?"

"He's planning to take Uk away from us and raise him in Cheonbugwan when he celebrates his first birthday."

All she is is speechless, unable to process revelation after revelation.

"I am afraid that he knows the secret behind his birth," he looks at the innocent little life he holds in his arms, them swings his eyes directly at hers when he knew she would be looking. 

Their gazes met for the first time, and if only her eyes could speak, it could've uttered "I miss you" a million times. She's afraid he's able to read her well, so it didn't last long and she gave up the stare.

All she was feeling aside from the pent-up longing for Park Jin whom she hadn't had contact with for a near month was guilt. She was the one who let Jin Mu near Uk anyway before the hellish ride started. 

But then again, Jin knows she couldn't have done anything to prevent it. So why did he stay still and watch her?

"If you knew, then why did you not help him? You didn't even spare a glance at Uk when he was being eaten by flames—"

"I suspected you." His quick intervention. If she was the one who's looking at nothing as she spoke earlier, it was him now. "What do I know? Maybe you sold the truth off—"

"Is that how lowly you think of me?" She couldn't help but ask. Her heart was once again, tearing apart so slowly. 

Park Jin faces her unamusing. "I just thought it was possible since right after we talked, you insinuated that Uk was suffering from something. Again, what do I know if that was part of the plan—"

Her palm landed on his face without warning. And then she stole Uk from his arms.

She wants to walk out right now but her tears fell as she looked at him and hoped for a better word. Why was she even waiting? 

"Leave," her cold remark. "We don't need you." Her words were brittle though they tried to be harsh. She turns around and there they were again at the chasing game.

Park Jin pulls her by the arm. "I am not leaving this place unless you leave with me and marry me , Kim Yeon."

The look on his face was all-out truth, and she wanted to take it as a joke but he wasn't letting go of her. 

"Are you serious right now?" Marry you?

"I am. And you seemed quite serious as well when you spread word to people that I was indeed your husband." 

"I only said that to protect Uk! What did you want me to say? The truth? Or that he's both an orphan and a bastard?" 

"And you don't think I'm doing the same for him?" He exclaimed. "This is the best way I can prevent him from falling on to Jin Mu's lap. And you can no longer do anything about it because that's what I told everyone already. If that changes, you can never keep him safe within these walls. They'll look for him and they won't stop." 

"What do you mean?"

"I'm not leaving until you're with me, Kim Yeon." He steps closer to her, a tempting distance. 

He seemed to have underestimated her conviction. 

"Then die waiting. I'm never going anywhere with you ever again."

Chapter Text

She was with an infant who's so closely drawn and longing for its father and yet the moment they pulled away to steer clear of him, it was not the one who wept. Instead, it was her. 

Kim Yeon’s only comfort was the way she was sure that Uk will grow up to become such a sensitive, caring man someday. Even at his age when he doesn’t understand a thing, he looks deep into her eyes and wipes the tears off of them whenever he sees that her cheeks aren’t dry. Perhaps it’s his innocence; he is not, in any way, corrupted by the inevitable darkness that’s wrapped around this world. Not like her and not like Park Jin. 

She hopes he’d be able to keep his purity forever, but when she thinks about it, how could that be? When in the first place, she’s not the one that’s ought to be his mom and she’s never meant to do the parenting alone. She holds shadows just as she has light. And at this point that she has decided she will be alone in this, it scares her more.

What if she raises Jang Uk wrong? What if he grows up knowing hatred more than love? The secret behind his birth, the fact that she was not the one who brought him out in this world, will she be able to explain all of that to him when the time comes? What if she becomes too afraid of certain things she doesn’t have control of? What if she fails to protect him? If not for that kind mage at Danhyanggok who luckily found them and decided that he’d lend them his help, she wouldn’t have done anything to take Uk away from his pain. 

She knows that there’d be a lot of failures along the way. It may even be her ill fate that made her be the imperfect match to a person that would soon grow up into a being so far from her. 

She needs Park Jin. He’s their only hope. But how could she? All he does is break her heart into a million pieces. At this point, she should be immune to it already, at least that’s what she’s been trying to do. But every time he does something, it still affects her. 

Who even gave him the power over her heart? Or is it because she’s just that easy to make and break?

“Let’s go home, aegi ,” she says to Uk, shaking his limp wrist and finding a space for laughter out of it though she still needs to sniffle every now and then as she walked back down to the plain.

Meadows made more striking by the afternoon haze was behind her as she carefullly took her steps, keeping in mind that she is holding Uk in her arms and if she slips, he does. She’s afraid there isn’t going to be another kind man whose strong hands would pull her from behind or wait to catch her.

There was, however, a frightening old lady. Who she’s feared for maybe all her life.

Yu Wol, the fortress leader, walked towards the direction Yeon has just gone from with her hands behind her back. Her eyes were always so sharp and ice-cold, just like her name that meant the moon. Wol Fortress has is called that for two reasons: One, it was founded by a powerful female mage whose name was Wol and later continued the legacy to female heirs who had the same names; and two, it’s a shelter to those who need light in the darkness. That’s the way she found her way here. For that, she is forever grateful.

She shouldn’t have left the moonlight and tried to reach for the stars and even trust them.

“ Ma-nim,” she bows to her, desperately hiding he rpuffy eyes but she had no luck with that. Even if she hides her face behind Uk’s small body, her sniffles and her flushed ears were all to clear for the other woman. Madam Wol doesn’t usually care. She is as cold as she portrays. She might carefully scan Kim Yeon from head to toe but she does with such sharp stares.

“You’re crying?” Her intimidating query.

Yeon kept her face down but she made her voice lively. “ Aniyo , I just… uh, it’s debris in my eyes. Yes that’s it–”

“Is it because of him again?”

Now that caught her off guard. The pure sincerity in the leader’s voice made her look but Yu Wol was looking somewhere else. Somewhere far away.

However, that’s just for a short while. Because as Kim Yeon gazed, Wol’s head quickly turned to her back again and so she returned to her former position. She then nods, humiliated.

She hears a scoff thereafter. “Well, you chose that.”

And she shouldn’t be overthinking that phrase over and over again.

The woman is as tough as the four-inch wood she was flogged with as a teenager, whenever she’d do some of Do-hwa’s biddings as a young girl with a wide mind but limited movement as she was a nobleman’s child. Kim Yeon happily did them for her. No one knew that it was not her who had wanted to set the unkind neighbor’s house of fire neither was she the one to blame when Do-hwa accidentally broke a precious stone that belonged to Yu Wol. Not that she's antagonizing everyone around her but to her, it felt like she was the damsel in distress without a knight in shining armor.

She's always been kind to everyone and that is her weakness. Not the greatest though, because her biggest weak spot and fear is losing any more people around.

She was a child when it was made clear to her that she was unwanted by either of those who had given her life. The only person who ever adored her died in her name. Do-hwa was her partner against the world when she had nothing. She was her best friend, her confidant, and a sister. Even if her lady didn't ask her to do such things for her, she still would, with her whole life and dedication put to it.

Yu Wol might not be the kindest to her but she loved the old woman for what she was. In her younger years, she didn't take her deep-rooted loathing to happiness and that's why she still chose to fool around and shower her with sunshine. She was never mean to the old lady. In fact, she has always been her number one fan. A hero, a warrior, a healer, and a great leader all at once. She'd sneak inside the infirmary just to watch her treat someone. She'd voluntarily assist her in everything even though she didn't ask her to just to calm her heart. It was her way of repaying Yu Wol's kindness, since she was the one who sheltered her after her adoptive father died. Even if she favored Do-hwa more and hated her for reasons she couldn't begin to think of, she adored her. 

All her life was spent without a mother, so having the leader be around and patient enough with her noise when she starts telling her hopes and dreams to her was her greatest comfort. Kim Yeon doesn't know whether she had paid attention or not. If she got anything from whatever she said or just wanted her dead the whole time. 

But as it seems, she does care. she did listen, even for a single moment of uncanny fortune, she did. 

"If you're going to keep crying about that man then you might as well let this child go," Wol stares at Uk lifelessly, and then to her. "You know how it feels to be incomplete growing up. You experienced it yourself, how you only had one person holding you and lost him.'"

Yeon bravely looks at her, eager to listen even though it meant breaking her heart.

"Heed my advice and want something better for your child. If you decide that you're the only one he has now then make sure he's not losing you as well while you're losing your mind over someone you still care for."

Now, those words echo in her mind like a continuous thunderstorm. 

Yu Wol told her those words in her usual way of saying stuff—she makes it seemingly indifferent. But to be honest, she knows where to hit her to make her mind function. 

The wise croon was right, she's indeed a victim of an unfair life. Maybe her star had fallen somewhere when it was just supposed to be written into a fairy tale and she's never meant to have more than what she does now. None of the people who gave her her breath wanted to take care of her. She found a hand to hold when she was little but his life had to end so shortly, and the worst thing is it was for her. Maybe her luck is just finding a better place for herself after being a court lady at such a tender age. And she's stayed there: to being a servant. 

"What if Uk suffers the same fate as I?" She was chopping up vegetables like a programmed machine that's set only to move per two seconds interval. She wasn't looking at what she's doing, her eyes were looking nowhere. Just thinking of how bad of an idea it is to decide for the child. 

She's not well-off, unlike Uk's original family. She couldn't give him the privilege of living in a nice house and growing up with the finest of clothes and food. If he ever grows out of his dress that's crafted by Songrim tailors, it might be the last time his skin ever touches high-quality silk. She doesn't practice magic either and will never be able to give him lessons, teach him spells. And even if she can, how about his origin? If she keeps him, she's keeping his secret from everyone including him and she doesn't want that. She doesn't want him to grow old and discover things himself that didn't come directly from her. The time will come that he'd hate her for hiding, and as of now, it's already scaring her to death.

She goes out of the house for a while, carrying a pot of the dish she made. She usually would cook just enough for herself and Uk and some friends but today she made more, so she has a reason to walk farther than she usually does. Just to see is Park Jin is still around. 

He said he won't leave until she's with him.

And she said that she wouldn't come with him anywhere ever again. 

"Is he there?" She asks the one who opened the door to the infirmary, where Park Jin must be. It's not like he can live in anyone's house. He wouldn't be comfortable. 

"Who's he?" The man mischievously asks, louder, like he meant tk make everyone hear. She quickly repulsed and gave him the pot, running away. 

Park Jin was there, she's sure. Just by the way they made a move to let him know she's there, too, she knew it. 

"He's still there… I still have time to think," over the table, she tells herself. And then somebody knocks.

She just said she needed time to think. 

"Kim Yeon, your pot!" Says the same man she handed it to. Hearing that it wasn't Jin, she opened the door and collected the ceramic pot in her arms.

But then she realized that she's given them plenty, and it's not even two hours since she handed him this. It's still pretty warm.

"It's all done?" She pulls the lid up, looking at the bottom of the container. There was actually nothing left. "Huh? I thought it'd last you a day."

"Your husband hasn't had a proper meal for I don't know how long," the guy says in an approach to awaken her guilt. It worked. "We tried to share our food with him, of course, but he will only take small bites and give it up. In most cases, he even pukes them out. He literally only has water in his system until your dish today."

Her heart starts to ache again. He wasn't there, he wasn't even doing anything to upset her and yet she feels that way. 

Upset with herself.

"He doesn't even know you cooked it. I just put it on the table and he started to eat, which was surprising. I guess he's already memorized the smell of your cooking."

"Which bathhouse does he use?" She asks after another day, to another man who seems close to Jin by now. Since he stayed at Wol Fortress, he also began working to provide for himself. Even if he grew up wealthy, it cannot fight with his persistence. Nothing could fight with it, not a single one of his traits could go above his pride. 

Fisherman Baek scratched the back of his head. "Well, he doesn't exactly use a bathhouse. He tends to go to the stream when it's near midnigh to—"

"Near midnight?!" Her voice got so high it almost broke. "But his bathwater must always be lukewarm. It's autumn. Even if it's not, he…" she had stopped. The way she knows him so well makes it appear as if she's worried.

She's worried.

But everyone knows she's trying to push him away. They're aware of their terms and how she doesn't want to see him. They know that she hates him and just wants him gone. But the truth is, she has already been thinking things through and is arriving near to her decision.

She just needs to see if she can still bring herself to stand by her initial decision since it would already be too embarrassing to be the one to come to him again and try to talk it out only for them to end up fighting. 

Until she found out she was uttering these words to nothing:

"If you asked me again, I would say yes." She breathes deeply, closing her eyes. "Just come here and ask me again, I'd say yes." That's practically wish and a sacrifice at the same time. 

Her dreams of love and marriage was big until she has accepted that Uk is bigger than her young hopes. He's more important and she'd risk everything for him. Even if it means having to fight with Park Jin for the rest of her life, then so be it. As long as she stays close to her child as he protects him and promises him better things than what she could provide, then she'd gladly be his wife of convenience.

For the following days, she's watched him be a servant to everyone, especially to Yu Wol. He might be Songrim's leader, but he's not in his territory to not obey. She'd see him cook a whole barrel of rice while she'd volunteer to cook the viand just beside him to at least drop some hints but he wouldn't even look at her. She kept coming at the stream, three nights consecutive, pretending to wash her clothes or the dishes or just simply stare at the moon's reflection rippling on the waters while waiting for him. He never came, but she always sees him in the morning. 

Specifically early morning, when he'd chop off logs using an ax at the fortress center so they'd be ready for the later cooking and evening fire. He was still around, until one day…

She's already mustered up the courage and prepared for the worst kind of humiliation upon deciding to tell him she's signing up for his desl. It was near sunset, after she'd sent Uk to his nap that she got out of the house and ran to the very same place she's used to seeing him at that time of the day. 

However, the eight men who take their rest under the shade of that open hut became seven.

Her eyes were eagerly searching for her lord, but they've noticed her and flashed such a sad look on their faces.

"Are you looking for your husband?" One asks.

Husband… "Y-yes."

"He just left, Yeon," it was Jin's closest friend, stepping forward.

The look on his face told her everything, but she still chose to play dumb. "Left? Where to?"

"Maybe back to his home. You weren't going to be swayed by anything that he does anyway, so…"

Her heart dropped like glass. All around her were its shards and her tears threatening to come out.

Someone stepped forward, holding a sheathed sword on top of his palms. "He forgot this, I'm afraid."

It was Jin's sword.

Out of hope and worry and guilt, she took the sword that weighed half of her own. Park Jin never leaves his sword. Sometimes must have gotten wrong.

He will cone back for this, she's sure. And when that happens, she going to be the first person he sees.

She didn't spend the days working on something to say only to let him go.

As she ran to the fortress's borders, her tears went to the opposite direction.

"I swear if you really leave me here, Park Jin." Her plea.

Her plea that was not heard.

Chapter Text

“ Juin-nim , I’ll marry you,” her eyes were showcasing just how decisive she was and yet sad to let go of the life everyone knows she’s always been dreaming of. Kim Yeon motions her hand to reach his own, and acknowledges the warmth of his eyes no matter how subtle. “I’d like to be beside you…” but she was unable to say more words.

“Aish! That’s too unrealistic!” She whines, stomping her feet on the floor and almost waking Uk.

If her previous midnights were made up of her dreams of him, these midnights have been different. Since Park Jin has cleared up his intention of marriage to her for the sake of Uk’s safety, she has never been peaceful enough to have at least six hours of sleep. She knew that the only answer she had was yes, since he told her that he’s not going to go anywhere if she doesn’t come along and agree. But to herself, she always felt like it would not be bad to spend the rest of her life with him.

A big part of her decision to let him own her entirely is for Jang Uk, of course. That boy has meant everything to her the first time she held him in her arms. That reason alone could cost her eternal freedom— to forbid her from finding a love more beautiful and fitting, or just simply live her life without the ties that bind her to responsibility. She used to think that if she ends up being the old, unmarried lady, then she wouldn’t be the beastly one. She wouldn’t become the evil stepmother or witch that just loves ruining life for younger people just because she didn’t have the happy ever after for herself. A garden of colors would have been enough if she couldn’t find someone who would give her rainbows and sunshine forever. 

But in this case, she has found her own rainbow and sunshine and her favorite flower, not just the one who’d give her it. Jang Uk is everything she ever wished for and more. However, in order to maintain him, she should make sacrifices that go beyond her own expectations.

“You really did take your time to get my answer, huh? You deserved it,” she says, more cheeky. But takes it back out of humiliation. “That’s too disrespectful now, he’s still your lord.”

She tries for another one, facing the small mirror that stood on the table. “If marriage is what it takes for us to protect Uk, then…” Again, discontinued. “Wouldn’t that hurt his feelings? But that’s not wrong, though. We are really going to tie ourselves in wedlock for Uk.” Her mouth was left slightly open for the following seconds, trying to imagine how he’d react if she ever said such a thing.

For her, marriage should be out of love and not convenience. Not for a purpose other than being lovey-dovey and understanding of each other until their last breath. So it really is hard for her to ever think of that coming out of her own lips even though she’s aware that the chances of Park Jin being too inclined in the idea of marriage for love are low. 

Her last idea of saying yes may or may not be his most preferred way of hearing it.

She was already losing hope that midnight isn’t her best time thinking about something decent to say. Until Jang Uk gave her another miracle.

Through his favorite lullaby— a song the she and Park Jin both were involved in making.

“You are my moonlight on a midsummer night.”

The infant was picked up from his crib as soon as he started complaining. It was not a cry, but the first signs of it. He was just awoken in a bad mood and bad timing, so she knew she could still fix that. Because if not, he’d awaken everyone in the fortress.

“And the cold wind when the blizzard starts.”

She even thought that maybe, she’d just let Uk cry. She’d let fate work its way and have Park Jin hear their little boy screaming on top of his small lungs and run in front of her door. But then, she thought, what if as much as she has been keeping a distance and avoiding him these days, he does the same?

“My everything and my nothing all at once.”

The past few days have been hell for her. She used to make him do small favors for her like handing her the wooden ladle, chopping up some spring onions while she adds spices to her dishes, and talking to him senseless as she does her duties as a maid. Now? Even if they’re in front of each other’s faces, even when their hips already are bumping due to the small kitchen space, they rub it off like they are unable to feel each other’s presence. 

But he’s always been there.

“Will you bring me to your arms?”

She knows he’s always been there. Even if she was praying so hard for him to just let them be. He was there and honestly, she misses him more severely now that they’re at a close distance.

She feels like she’s so close to the place where she needs to be, and yet so far.

“I want to call it home.”

The end of the song was the last time she thought of the perfect words to say.

“Home,” she whispers, doubting it. “I shall go home. Is that the right thing to say?”

And the day went like it did the previous ones. She’d jump out of bed early to boil Uk’s bath water and she will see Park Jin topless, again , at the town square with his axe in hand and chopping off logs. She will see a thousand eyes pointed at his figure again and mumble to herself, again , “He literally can control entities. Why bother chopping wood when he can just wave his hand and it’s done?” 

And then, just like usual, she will roll her eyes and decide that she doesn’t want that sight again. She just feels like there’s this impulse inside her that would be unkind if she sees him doing that at a near distance. Sometimes, he’d catch her watching him, and she doesn’t really know how to feel about that. He doesn’t even want to care or chase after her even if she’s holding Uk. 

When noon approaches, she’d go to the kitchen where she’d bump on him. They’ll be in the same space alone for a time a day and yet they’d both refuse to talk. Since she has already made up her mind that she will take his offer, she thought that it’d be the best time to speak about it. But there was her irrationality, in the worst time ever. She wanted him to speak to her first, because her pride thought it was a good time to come by. What she didn’t expect is that hours later, she’d find herself by the docks, regretting everything with tears in her eyes as she held the sophisticated sheathed sword of what they refer to as her “husband”.

Kim Yeon stared at the vast Gyeongcheondaeho, not knowing which one of those boats that approached the horizon had Park Jin there as the passenger. There are still some boats available, anchored and ready to go when she is. And it might be best for her to stay here since she’s spent time ignoring him and wooing him away, but she chose to become that fool who is just so ready to admit that what she said and did weren’t what her heart truly wanted.

She wipes her tears like a brave lady and walked towards a boat, with a familiar boatman already preparing to greet her.

“Kim Yeon!” He happily states, bowing down.

“I need a ride,” she says lifelessly, and carelessly puts a shoe in the boat. “Can you row fast? I need to follow–”

“Is it Park JIn, your husband?” He intervenes. When the ferryman said that, she almost wanted to die, anticipating the following information. 

What if this is the same guy that brought Park Jin back to the capital and he just came back? What if she’s too late?

However, to confirm, she nods weakly.

“Ah, well, he’s…” he suspended the clause, like it was something she wouldn’t want to know. 

The man clicks his tongue. “You see, he came here with Lady Yu earlier and the two of them even borrowed two of my oars.”

“Lady Yu?” That got her fast.

“Yes. They didn’t acquire a boat though. They went somewhere up there,” he points behind her, an uphill road. She looks over her shoulder and then back at him in uncertainty. “Are you sure?”

“I can’t say that, because I already did my rounds and so I haven’t seen them return.”

“But it’s sunset…” she gulps. It’s an hour before dark and when it gets that dim around the place, there’s no chance of travellers still being on the waters. Park Jin is smart enough to know how many hours it’ll take to reach Songrim from here.

If he hasn’t returned, then…

She looks at his sword, starting to feel her eyes fill up again.

“ Gomapseumnida, ahjussi, ” she doesn’t even look at the guy. She looks at his sheathed sword with its tip on the grass as she turns around, still holding that posture, just for the sake of no one seeing her crying on her way back to the house.

Not until the golden glow of the hour brought her the brightest fire in her heart.

“You’d have that done tomorrow then?” A low voice of an older female.

Followed by the voice that felt like home. “I could finish that up in the morning if you want it quick. What’s it for, anyway?” 

Yu Wo was already looking at her, but Park Jin focused his eyes on the fortress leader as he waited for an answer.

And Lady Yu gave that with the most devilish smile on her face. “For her.”

Just then did her voice break, upon calling his name. “Park JIn,” she quickly hiccups.

And he still had to look at her from a distance to confirm that there were indeed tears in her eyes. “Kim Yeon?” The moment he realized it was all real, she was already running to him, his sword in hand.

Her footsteps reached him and finally, for a brief moment, her arms were wrapped around him, with her face in contact with his chest.

Yeon felt the world disappear for a while. She completely forgot how she should be behaving now, and even the words that she needs to say. For that one moment, she just felt grateful for the fact that he was imprisoned in her arms and he had no plan to move or escape her grasp. 

She then takes her face off of his chest and looks up at him, scanning him. She had a thousand words to say. She wanted to yell and reprimand him. But she realized that the reason why he had been so frozen in her touch was because she landed directly on the wound on his chest. It was fresh and his clothes were still soaked in a few smudges of blood. 

She wanted to ask him right there and then what had happened, and wanted to fight him. But she saw the people around her increase in number. Like they have planned all of this. Roaming her eyes around the place, she found Lady Yu Wol’s mischievous stare. 

Her hand motioned to grip around her lord’s wrist and urged him to follow her. “Come with me,” was her whisper of instruction. He followed right behind her and was even the one who shut the door behind him as they entered her place.

Uk was fast asleep. He was the one that Park Jin checked out for sure. As for her, she carelessly gathered clean dressings for his wound as well as the only chair in her little abode. Just as clumsily, she pulled him by the sleeve and pushed him seated. The next thing she did was rather uncanny for him.

She undid his robes. Layers of them, until she saw the root cause of the stain on his top coat.

He was still as silent. But she could not bear giving him the cold shoulder still as she saw the horrific state of his skin.

He’s a high-maintenanced mage from a well-off family. The reason why Uk is just fourth-level hard for her is because she used to serve his mother who was a nobleman’s daughter, a Gwanju for his father, and the greatest dilemma of hers: Park Jin. Who was too perfectly molded to be held unfairly. His skin has always been so glowy, and everything from his jaw down were toned. She has been used to maintaining him. Even if that was her job, she can’t help but connect her heart to what she does. 

That’s why seeing him try so hard to keep living just to keep seeing her and Jang Uk in this fortress makes her heart shatter every time. The way Lady Yu was intetionally trying to make things harder for him was her silent battle. She worries about his every single move. Her chest contracts at the mention of him only taking his bath at night, because it’s the only time he’s got for himself. She was so guilty that he made himself a fisherman and a lumberjack and a cook all at the same time while trying to find a roof over his head every day. She even took the job of cooking for the townsmen just so he’d eat, because he doesn’t like others’ cooking.

So as she stared at his bare top, she felt dizzy. His ribs were already visible from his bruised abdomen. There were purple and green spots on his skin that indicated pain. And she knows that he has obtained most of his scars from his lifetime of training, but there were a few fresh ones she’s never seen before. Her eyes went up to his face, and his eyes were just waiting for her own. But the way his cheeks have gotten thinner, and his stubble a bit too thick, with dark circles under his eyes, she can only take a deep and frustrated blow, simultaneous with her tears.

“Have you gone crazy, Park JIn?” She bellowed, but kept her hands on the white cloth anyway. “Couldn’t you have been more careful? Look at this! Where did you get this wound?” She points at the incision at the top of his heart. “What if this has gotten deeper? You could’ve killed yourself!”

He keeps staring at her blankly. “I was just installing some–”

“And what about this? You didn’t have this scar on your shoulder before,” her voice now sparked worry.

“I hurt myself with the axe while chopping–”

“That one, too! Do you know how cold it gets outside that early in the morning? Why would you leave your clothes behind and sweat out in the fog?” Her hands kept tapping on his bleeding heart.

Jin gasps, “I only have a few set of clothes, I didn’t want to sweat in them–”

“Then why didn’t you just ask me to do it?” She stopped for a while just to look at him with the anger she’s trying so hard to show, but she’s just breaking down in front of his eyes. “Look at you, you’re so pale and thin already. You don’t eat properly because you’re not eating other foods than what I make. And you didn’t tell me?”

“How was I supposed to tell you–”

“I always do that for you! Even when I get mad at you, I still do that for you. If you wanted to go take a bath even in the deep of the night, you could’ve called me. I’d have carried buckets of hot water and filled up the entire stream for you–”

“But you’re mad at me–”

“I’m not mad at you.”

“You wanted me away.”

“I don’t…” She started to sniffle, so weak. “I want to, but it doesn’t work. I worry about you and it sucks.”

Her confession made her feel so little, because all this time, she’s been acting so brave. But she really finds it hard to keep doing that with him.

“I want you away, just to show you that I can. I can, but it’s hard. Every time you avoid my eyes, it hurts. What more of not actually seeing you?” She kept looking down. He’s probably cringing so hard right now, she just doesn’t want to know.

“What does that have to mean?” He asks, and now she’s out of words.

Kim Yeon kept sniffling, stalling. Looking everywhere to buy herself time to decide whether or not she will say it.

But it felt so heavy in her system already.

She bows down, “yes…” A whisper.

“I’m sorry?” 

She takes the dirtied cloth from his wound and turns around, gripping on it. “I was going to tell you yes.” 

You’re so dumb. You’re so achingly dumb, Kim Yeon.

“Yes to what?”

To taking me back home. “Whatever you think the question was, then my answer is yes.” That’s just what she said, to avoid further embarrassment. But he caught her off-guard by what he said after.

“Did you miss me?”

That got Kim Yeon turning around so fast, her eyes as big as an owl’s

“Did you miss daddy, baby?” 

He was carrying Uk, the one he’s talking to. He returned to her disappointed little heart after happily getting wet kisses from the little boy.

“What were you saying again, Kim Yeon?”

Despite getting a dent on her hopes, she smiled. “Nothing, Juin-nim, I think I’ll just–” she tried to find a way to escape the situation but he was wiser than she was.

“That doesn’t sound quite right,” he steps closer to her, intimidating her eyes with the sight of his half-bare, perfectly sculpted body threatening to meet her face once again. 

“P-pardon?” She kept looking at the floor, but can’t help seeing his skin still.

“ Juin-nim is not what you should call me, my wife.”

Her heart jumps, making her make a sound. Park Jin moved closer with Jang Uk steady in one arm. But as he inched nearer and nearer, she could only ever see the shadows on his face, with his dark eyes reigning over their color.

HIs breath was under her nose at one go. “How about seobangnim? ”

He heard her after all.

Chapter Text

" Seobangnim. " 

Jin knew his heart had already been shattered to pieces that day but he's never felt a sharper pain than when he heard Do-hwa's sweet voice declare her then-fresh status with the Gwanju of Cheonbugwan. 

It was their wedding day, a perfect summer afternoon. The sun did not burn excruciatingly and the clouds gave the perfect color of light to bless the regal palace where the two of them wed, just in time for the setting sun to come by the very end of the ceremony and wouldn't have to wait that long before the new moon marks their new bound of vows as each other's, permanently. 

That day was perhaps the day half of him gave up— had gone petrified. Every wave of memory clashed onto his shore. Everything he did for her, big or small… Every word he rhymed with the other and written ever so perfectly on expensive pieces of paper just so he could make her believe that his love was pure; The objects he would see in each of his expeditions and buys to give to her— everything. He did everything for her. Even the things that did not have certainty, that in his case, he feels so humiliated for. 

Kim Yeon is the closest person to Do-hwa that he knows. They are like sisters, even when one of them was the servant. That's just one of the things that made him head over heels for the fair lady from Wol Fortress: her kindness and grace. He'd love to spend the rest of their lives together, with him providing her with a life free of hardships. That's why he obtained information from her handmaiden about the type of life she deems to have in the coming years. And Yeon, being the talkative woman that she was, gave him more than what he asked for. 

His questions simply revolved around what Do-hwa wanted in earthly possessions. What color she'd prefer to see dominantly inside the house, the design she'd like it built, what business does she want to keep her attention on as she waits for her other half when the day has ended. He just wanted to know how Do-hwa had been picturing her life back then, and he thought it'd all be as shallow as material things. But Kim Yeon was right to tell him more. 

"My young lady doesn't talk about her future life as if she's dictating it. She wants fate to take over, and not intervene in any way… Because she believes that what she must get is what she deserves from her actions and morals. She is kind and beautiful, and she does not require a life of wealth. As long as she can keep her happiness and peace, if that is what you're asking," admiration was so visible in the servant's eyes as she looked at her lady who was meters away from them, tending to the goats like a holy shepherd. Park Jin looked at the same view. 

"Of course, she still is human, with the needs and sins of one sometimes. Although she continues to grow past that, she has a thirst for power, too. Not for herself, but for others. Like me. She wanted to protect me, that's why she took me in in the first place. But if she could do more than putting a roof over my head and making sure that I eat not less than once a day, she would. She has a heart for adventure and she could sometimes be mischievous. If only this world wasn't too tight on her who is noble and beautiful and is dictated to be no more than what they're telling her to be, she could be someone who changes it for good."

He just falls more and more for Do-hwa.

"She wants more than what marriage could offer. Growing up, she has always dreamed of being able to wield a sword as well just like mages do. And in the place where we're from, people were encouraged to dream. That did not apply to her, however, because as much as her beauty is magic, it is a curse on itself. It binds her to their stereotypes, although she wants to be more than a woman who marries to secure her life."

He glances at Yeon for a second, full of worry there. "Well, is she not planning to have that life with anyone?"

"She didn't exactly guard her heart," Kim Yeon licks her bottom lip and smiles, "she just thought that there could be more. But there was no hatred towards marriage for her. Just like any woman, she sees herself as a wife and a mother, too. So you must not worry, for she didn't put restrictions in that department. I think, by now that she has believed enough that this is as far as she goes, she needs a partner moreso. My lady is just like a flower. Beautiful and sought for but sensitive and in need of care," she turns her lips near his ear and giggles, "at times, she can be poisonous, too."

He chuckles. "Well, what do you think is her depiction of a perfect life with her future other half?"

Yeon inches away now. "Like I said, whoever it is, she doesn't need him to be well-off. But since you are so interested, I am guessing that you're seeing it to be you?" 

He just smiles as a response. He's an intelligent mage, but he finds it amazing how a servant who did not hold standard books could be that quick in reading other people.

"You could give her a house with ten or a hundred rooms, she will just want it embellished with soft yellows. Also, weird wooden carvings creep her out. So be sure not to put that in the house. She likes her place clean because insects make her jumpy. Also, her skin is delicate so she needs it cared for specially. These are just things I ask of you to maintain, because that is how I take care of her," a sad smile, a realization that soon, she'd have to let her lady go. "She dreams to wed in a perfect summer day, when the sun is not too bright and hot. She told me once that she'd like to have it inside the walls of the palace, just so she could experience going in one. I wonder if that has changed."

I'd build an entire palace for you.

"But I guess that if she doesn't care about the status of her lover, that was just a mere joke. She deserves it, though. And I know that it is something you won't find hard to grant." 

Kim Yeon was, before, the greatest fan of his love for her lady. 

Perhaps because in those times, she was rooting to be with her own prince charming. And that could only have happened had Do-hwa and Jang Gang didn't get together in the end.

"Do you think that she would really fancy me? Is there a chance? Or does she have a certain preference?" He asks, already doubting he'd keep growing his hair like he planned. 

"She isn't one who's hard to feel love and give it," Yeon said with a strained expression. Completely disbelieving her lady would be picky like he's trying to imply. "She wants a husband that's kind and good-looking, at least in her own eyes. It's bare minimum for a man to know how to take care of himself and have clean nails and hands and be fragrant. That's literally all that she's asking, because she can put up with a slow-witted one or a fragile husband as long as there is genuine love in between them. But if you will ask me, she has a thing for tall, smart, serious, and straightforward men. It makes her blush when someone so quiet talks comfortably with her. And you don't seem to be that social," she judges him with her eyes, "so yes. I guess you can shoot your shot," now she rolls them. 

And she was making him laugh just by that. "How about you, Kim Yeon?" He asks playfully.

"How about me?"

"What's the type of husband you're dreaming of?"

"What kind of husband are you?" Leader Yu insulted in quite a raised tone of voice. "Did you even take your time knowing your wife? You don't know that she loves flowers?" 

That was her response when she pulled him from the berth and told him to borrow oars from a ferryman. She led him here and made him dig the soil at her front yard using those wooden paddles, instructing him to plant some seeds. When he asked what those were, she said that they were balsam flower seeds. And then she proceeded to say that his wife , Kim Yeon, used to want to plant those there because she loves flowers. 

"Really? I didn't know she loves flowers." That was the single most foolish sentence he could've ever uttered. The next thing he knew, his head was already throbbing, shaking from being hit once by her strong left hand and being given an earful all at once.

"She must've fallen really hard for you," she clicks her tongue in an insulting manner but she kept her smug attitude there.

That had him looking at her from his current state. The lady of the fortress is as terrifying as she gets, but his persistence and pride always wins against anything. He wouldn't care if he'd be beheaded next thing if that's the consequence for asking another foolish question. "What do you mean?"

But she was calm when she looked down on the entirety of the place she governs. It's a bright afternoon, and men are inside their homes, being nursed by their wives to lunch. He doesn't eat when it's that type of day that he's not the one assigned to cook rice and Kim Yeon is not in charge in the common kitchen. It's that time of the week when he's surely spending the night at the infirmary, because the full moon would pull dangerous tides by the berth and no one will be allowed to be anywhere near that place. Even if he can control water, nothing is more feared than Yu Wol who makes all these rules. That's why he's here to begin with.  

"Are you really her husband?" Her question after a minute of silence. Seeing that they're in this series of lies, he almost threw himself off the elevated land. What does he know if she knows the truth?

Luckily, she added to that query. "I mean, did you even get to know her? How many years have you been married?" She glances at him. 

And he puts his head down, making it look like he's focusing on digging but it was honestly just so he could avoid her eyes since he's so easy to read. "It hasn't been a year," he says in a low voice. That was not planned, but he just based his answer on the fact that it hasn't been a year since the one who had been keeping his heart in her hands had died. He wants to consider the memory of her still, and he's just wishing that Kim Yeon said the same if she ever mentioned this or was asked. 

"Hasn't been a year, huh? So did you just knock her off, got her pregnant, and married her? That's why you're already falling apart this early on?"

He fears that if this wasn't all a sham, the words of the woman could be true. 

If they did the deed that night and a life grew inside her, he might be suffering this very same fate.

"It wasn't like that. It's just that… we got caught up so quickly—"

"And didn't give any thought to what's to come next. Just went off like goats, right?" The way she disrespectfully tried to inject the harsh truth in him reminded him so much of his friend, Wang Shin.

"You…" The woman's light-colored eyes inspected him. "Do you really love our Kim Yeon?"

And the way he abruptly falls apart at every sharp question looks all the same. 

Jin gulps, unmoving. He shouldn't be hesitant to say yes. And it's not like he's not used to lies, but there's a life in his heart that'd be tainted with guilt if he says that one word. 

He has never directly spoken of how he fake-feels for his fake lover. That's how it's going to go. 

"Why do you think I went here—"

"I heard that before." She cuts him off, brash. "So I'm right? You had her under your spell, carried her to bed, and now, the only reason you're here is not for your love of her but for your child." 

It was a definite yes. She's right, and it doesn't even make his heart thump the slightest because it was the truth that he just couldn't say. But it is what it is. He's just here for Jang Uk.

Or is he?

"I am old enough to know that these things happen. But you are her husband. There's no way we could take that back now so the least you can do is show her that you care even if it's not in the way that you truly love her, but at the very least, in the way that she's the mother of your child and the woman that you married." 

Getting that earful was all pointless until…

"This wasn't the life that she dreamed of. You weren't the husband she used to wish upon shooting stars."

For a moment, he came back to that moment when he asked her about the man of her dreams. When he didn't have confirmation yet that it was indeed Jang Gang. He just wanted to know what he was like, because honestly, he had a lot to say. If he ever knew him, he'd put up a good word for Kim Yeon just so he could reciprocate her efforts in helping him with Do-hwa. 

He thought back then that she deserved the world, and they were friends. They're still friends now, but looking back to his old self… Why does it break his heart a little, knowing that he used to want to grant her more than the things he used to believe she deserves in life and now he's the one throwing her off the cliff? Now, he's the person he feared Kim Yeon would end up with. 

"What's the type of husband you're dreaming of?" He asked, and to which she didn't give an answer. 

"Yeon has had a tough life. And she always knew that marrying into a noble family was going to be her only escape in the world that only brought her misfortune. Not that I'm saying that she used you, as you are obviously a well-off mage. Because if she did… If her feelings for you were as feebly rooted in the idea that you could provide her all of the things that she didn't get to have in her youth, she'd have stayed with you no matter what you fucked up. But no, she arrived here with mud-soaked clothes, starving, injured, and with a child in her arms. She has endured a horrendous venture just to stray away from you and your gold-filled kingdom." 

At the mention of her arriving, his heart sharply reacted. It was like a shard of broken glass has stabbed it in a swift second. 

As he looked at the ground he kept digging, his mind flew to the sight of her beautiful face full of exhaustion and sadness. He could envision the way she looked when she got here with Uk. And he couldn't believe he let her suffer from that.

"She was determined to come back to her simple life here and didn't even mention that she had married a wealthy man. And everything was fine until you came here. If you're a dimwit who's just too dumb to catch hints, I'll give it to you: She loves you."

He looks up at her in surprise.

"It is not hard for her to love, nor to forgive. And the moment she found you sleeping out in the cold in front of her door, she had immediately cried out for help to take you to the infirmary. If she did not care at all, she would've let you die right there and then. But she didn't. Every time you hurt, she hurts. No matter how much you make her cry, she'd still cry for you. She takes care of you up until now, if you're not aware. Everybody in this fortress can see that your wife loves you. Entirely ."

She does? An innocent voice asked at the back of his head.

"But it seems to me that you aren't worthy of her love a single bit. Yes, you're staying here to convince her to come back to your home. Why? Because of Uk?" Yu Wol scoffs. "Maybe the reason why she didn't let us know she had married is because I was right. It was abrupt. It was not worth knowing and getting a piece of her old self from here to give to you."

He stops all his notions at once.

"What are you implying to?"

Lady Yu smirks. "She didn't tell you? She used to write you letters every time she wished on a star."

Kim Yeon had a tough battle with her mind last night that she had slept a little late. And if not for the direct sunray assaulting her closed eyes, she wouldn't have her senses awoken. 

Every morning, her first instinct is to find Uk beside her and give him kisses and cuddle for a while more. But when she didn't feel her boy next to her, she didn't panic and open her eyes yet, because it's still fresh in her memory how she let Park Jin have the bed while she slept on the floor, and Uk always sleeps on the softer surface. He'd been with his dad for that night.

She's expected to find them both up to her left, but when she sat up, she was the one on the bed.

"What?" She looks around. "Did Jin transfer me here?" She looked down on the floor, expecting to find Uk and Jin there. But they weren't.

Her chest felt like it would explode.

Without a sound, she runs outside. Her heart was pounding out of worry. What if Jin had taken Uk? What if their agreement to marriage and fake affection just when people that believe their betrothment is real was all just a tactic to make her comfortable to break her walls down?

But her panic-stricken self was able to breathe fine when the sight of her two boys appeared just nearby, at an elevated meadow. It was a mountain view and sunrise they were facing.

Jin carried Uk on his left arm, and to her, it looked like they were enjoying the view. Both of them were peaceful and quiet.

If this is the life that's waiting for her every day, it might not be too bad after all.

She walks to them quietly, appreciating how the autumn mage matched autumn itself. Park Jin's aura was as cold and mellow as the sunrise paired with surrounding fog. Jang Uk was in a blue robe, completely taking him off of the season. He seems to be for colder days.

But she remembered that he shouldn't be exposed to cold. So she ran.

"Uk-ah!" She exclaims, attempting to get her little baby from Jin but he turned around just in the nick of time, and it revealed him reading a piece of paper.

Yet that wasn't the one that swept her off her feet. Uk was holding three stems of multicolored blooms in his little grip and they were perfectly leveled in front of her eyes. 

Her little boy was smiling, handing it to her like he had practiced what he did. Shyly, she takes the balsam flowers in her hand, still wondering where they could've gotten those near winter.

Finally after that, she looks at Park Jin. But what she saw was only how he hid the piece of paper he's reading in his sleeve and tenderly looked into her eyes.

Before she knew it, he already had his free hand surrounding her shoulder and back. 

Jin pulled her into an embrace, Uk included. Each passing second, he presses himself more against her, gently rubbing her back and touching her hair every once in a while.

Shocked, she used her eyes to check if people were near that's why he's doing that. But to her misfortune, she could only see the mountain she faced.

She thought twice about it, but ended up unsurely lifting her hand to hug him back. Before she can, however, he already pulled apart and planted a soft, soft kiss on her head.

It could've knocked her out. He rendered her frozen and unable to think just at the warmth his lips gave her once again. Her eyes were stretched wide, looking at him innocently.

But Jin focused on Uk and moved his little arm to a wave as he altered his voice and said…

"Good morning, mommy," he says on behalf of Jang Uk. But there was something in the way he briefly looked at her.

Suddenly, she remembers that this was in one of those silly letters.

"...The next time I wake up, it will be you who grants me a kiss and an embrace to be my first thing in the morning."

This coincidence is bothersome to her heart.

Chapter Text

The skies were no longer her enemy, because she was going to surrender.

All her life had been believing that the stars wrote something incredibly magical for her. Her optimism led her to believe that she was not meant to be just a small villager without an impressive tail-end to her life that’s lived half-miserably. But then again, if that was the case all along, then why did she pick up this practice of looking up at the night sky and hoping for a star to fall from there? If she was devoted enough to her fated journey just like her young lady, then why does she continue finding ways to defy it?

However, that night, she gave up hope.

Do-hwa gets married the next day. And they have arrived in their homeland not a week ago to retrieve the things that she fancies taking with her in her new life as a married woman to one of the greatest mages existing at that age and not to mention how vast his connections and riches are all over Daeho. Even if she liked to confront her feeling of agony upon being the one left in the dust despite all her futile efforts of obtaining his heart, it’s not like she could leave her duties even surrounding the biggest reason why she hurts so much.

Wol Fortress was what it was called, because it’s where the energy of the moon harvests at its immense beauty at night. However, when the moon is new, just like now, there could only be stars. The same stars she’s so fond of waiting to hit the earth and make her wishes come true. 

In her eyes were tears as she watched the last star she vowed to wish upon. Nothing comes after, she’s done believing them after this.

Shakily, she writes again.

My husband,

This is to be the last letter I ever attempt to write to you— not because I’ve lost hope that you will come, but because I have dreamt and wished for you in all the wrong ways. I am not going to stop hoping for my new beginning with you; unfortunately, I will refrain from trying to picture the life I want to have and let fate take over once and for all.

I think that defining the stars my own way hadn’t been worth it after all. They told me to trust them, and this is the last time that I’ll be trusting them, because I’m giving it up to them. I thought that wishing for you in every passing star that appears in the night sky to pass by or fall on the lands of this world would work, but then you are not the husband I’ve wished so hard and frequent for. The letters I have written before this one depicted my perfect little life with you, and depicted you yourself. However, seeing how I’ve been betrayed and burned by these same celestials that I have trusted so much, I am afraid I could never appeal to them again. i have so much hatred and grief in my heart at this point; and I have more than just that. So if in time— if in any case I’d be fortunate enough to be giving this to a man who’d be the one I love for the rest of my existence, I hope you do not change your mind.
As an infant, I have been abandoned by my very blood. Out of the blue appeared a heart kind enough to shelter me, but he was gone too soon. And then I had to learn life alone, even learned it the hard way. I am not only full of grief or hate, I am empty of affection. I am empty of any words that could possibly make my heart hope for another day. i lack attention and love and I don’t seem to be enough to be anyone’s possession.
I am a glass half-full and half-empty all at once. But trust that I am willing to be your glass of liquor on cold nights and on celebrations. I will be giving you everything that I could offer. Just please come soon.

I do not ask for you to be rich or smart or powerful. I desire not to define you anymore. But for the last wish I trade with the star that has fallen in front of my eyes, I wish for you just to come true. To come home. To be the person I breathe the air with, see the world with, and close my eyes with at night, sheltered in your arms.

It wouldn’t be long now. The next time I wake up, it will be you who grants me a kiss and an embrace to be my first thing in the morning.

“But isn’t that too far-fetched still?” She ridicules herself in a whisper after she inked those words on parchment. Kim Yeon stared at the deep blackness, rethinking her option of wishes. But they do not come true anyway.

Normally, she would take these pages and put them in a cupboard, never rereading them and decdiding to forget the words so that they’d come true. But she lied multiple times at that part. Because every time she lays her eyes on Jang Gang, she thinks of him as the embodiment of what she has written. But that changes now. Not only is he betrothed to her lady, but he cleared it out to her that she was never a part of his dreams. 

He’s all he’s been wishing for. He’s the reason why she practiced being perfect. She altered her messy penmanship just so he’d be able to read her flawless letters to him by the time he reads them before their wedding ceremony. Everything. More than what she could give and never less.

But since that night, she forgot everything she ought to do. That paper was left on the very same field of grass she used to watch the stars at. She became lifeless for days. For the following years, she’d completely forget where she had placed the other letters and in those years as well, her little cabin at the fortress was altered and cleaned multiple times.

So when Jin embraced and kissed her head that morning as if it was an out-of-the-manuscript act in the fairy tale, she had no idea where to go aside from the one who knows everything that happens inside the fortress.

“Lady Yu,” she bows at the old woman and then proceeds with her desperate question.

As if Yu Wol cares enough for her and her stuff. She only ever fancied Do-hwa because she was the one that’s prim and proper. Everybody liked Do-hwa and disregarded her. So the answer to her query was something that did not surprise her anymore. 

It even put a smile of relief on her face.

“I think I burned them together with your other belongings,” was the response. 

Indeed. She took everything valuable to her to the capital the morning they left for Do-hwa’s wedding. What remained in the cottage should mean nothing anymore. So to have burned them was a smart and space-saving move.

After all, why would it matter? She does not love him, and he does not love her. Like, perhaps, but not enough like to be in wedlock. At this point, she doesn’t even like him. 

Or at least that’s what she’s trying to say. Because ever since they arrived back to Songrim, her lord has been keeping her close. Always a hand over her shoulder, always close at proximity, always minding everything she says because that’s a necessity. It was what they’ve agreed to do to save their con artistry and not make it fall on the hands of suspicion. Even if it has all been out of their sworn job to one another and the promise of keeping their Uk safe, it was still all a bothersome kick to her heart.

She remembers her letters because she wrote them. They may be burned, but the content will forever burn at the back of her mind.

She has wished for a husband who walks on her left all the time. Kind of specific, true, but just so it happens, she realizes that Park Jin now stands to her left every time. 

It feels wrong not to be able to give him her letters when he’s the one she’s meant to wed. But at the same time, she thinks it’s just right. Why would she bother to make him read those? Will he even be interested enough for that? And if he does, what exactly will he think of her right after? That she’s trying to turn this marriage of convenience into a marriage of love and deep affection? She’d rather not.

But still…

“Do you have anything to give to my young master?” Asks Maidservant Park as she watched Yeon’s new attendants put cosmetics on her face. 

“Nothing,” she says, uninterested. Right after, she heard the woman click her tongue. So she followed it wih another statement. “It’s not our wedding yet, so relax.”

“Even so! Today is the day you publicize your engagement to all of Daeho! It is just right for the two of you to exchange gifts.” The Park family maidservant insinuates.

Yeon keeps thinking of those letters in her silence. It would have been the perfect betrothement gift for her soon to be husband. But on another note, he has the world in his hands. He’s born with absolutely nothing to worry about. Would it hurt so much if she doesn’t give him anything?

Not for him, maybe. But she? Sure. It icks her. She thinks that the man is at least worthy of something in return since he seems to be all prepared for this occasion. 

“But he’s preparing for this not because he likes to, though,” she says under her breath. But it was unfortunately heard by Maidservant Park. 

“What’s that?” She asks.

Her round eyes shoot up at the woman as she lied. “Nothing. It’s not like it’s your business,” she rolls her eyes. But it’s a joke. Because as much as Maidservant Park is tough and unforgiving, they are friends. They can be cheeky at each other if they want.

“You brat!” Maidservant Park exclaims. She ws getting cheeky as well, but Kim Yeon is afraid it’s gotten out of line for her already. “I don’t even know what Young Master Park saw in you. He used to be so smitten with Young Lady Do-hwa. I mean, how close can you come to that complete and utter beauty?”

It was followed by shallow laughter. But she remained silent after that.

Another reason why she thinks it’s not worth her effort and stress to think of giving something to Park Jin.

Just before the ceremony started, she wished to be alone in the room. 

The last few deep breaths as she convinced herself that she wasn’t at all hurt.

“I’d be giving you my whole self in a matter of weeks. That is more than enough,” she puffs out a sigh.

But the evening celebration never started.

She wished to be left alone just for a few minutes, but after that time span came people who weren’t her servants, barging into the room.

“We are from the unanimous assembly, Young Lady,” says the women that appeared, together with a few mages with them.

She held her ground. Jin told her that she should be careful of who she trusts, so she kept her questions minimal.

 “And what do you need from me?” Her panic appeared above the polite query.

“The heads of the assembly are wishing for your cooperation,” the mage sternly says.

“Cooperation? For what?”

“You and Park Jin,” a voice echoed from behind. A pregnant lady wearing an elegant dress with embroidered crests on their edges appeared by the doorframe. Jin Ho-gyeong steps inside the room and takes over the conversation, making everyone else bow at her. Her sharp eyes looked at Kim Yeon with a mixture of both concern and wonder with a hint of disgust that perhaps is just normally there, but whatever she meant with that gaze and posture, it made Yeon scared. 

The leader of Jinyowon sighs before the statement. “You and your betrothed will be questioned simultaneously. It will be the same question, and it will define the authenticity of your so-called engagement. So if either of you speaks of a different answer, Jang Uk will be taken by the assembly and his home will be decided. And this whole sham will be exposed to the whole country.”

Kim Yeon staggers back.

“But if you get it right, you will be supported with your decision to wed.” Ho-gyeong says heavily. “So prepare. You’ll be taken to Jeonjingak.” She coldly leaves the room.

Chapter Text

“That child thinks I don’t care about her. That’s what I made it seem,” Lady Yu says after she handed him a small, rectangular box that was the size of his forearm. “But she is precious to me. So do me a favor and keep her from now on. Or else I will actually be the one to come up at your door in the middle of the night with an intention to kill you.”

That was the last morning he spent at Wol Fortress, such an early earful but with great sense. He took Uk out because after giving him the box that contained the letters that Kim Yeon wrote for her future husband, Lady Yu requested for Uk to be brought to her yard. And when he did bring their morning sun to the flowery front of her house, she used a spell to make the seeds that she made him plant grow in front of his eyes. That was the only time he understood why she said that the labor he went through was for Kim Yeon, because she gave those blooms to Uk to be given to his mom.

And he had been thinking… Maybe his marriage to her wouldn’t be the worst thing after all. If he could watch her sleep in peace every night after knowing how frequent her past haunts her after reading the content of the first letter she wrote for the person that was surprisingly him, he’d take that any day. If he could wake up at the sight of her still, and be the one to take their child out in the sun while letting her have the time to sleep as a reward for being such a hardworking lady of the household, he’d practice that eagerly. If he could be the actual man of her dreams, he’d be that. Because surprisingly, these days, all he’s ever thinking of is her.

There are eight letters in that box. Eight shooting stars in all the years she’s spent looking for love. He wonders if stars that fall are really just that rare or she’s just not the skies’ favorite admirer as she said in one of those pages.

For a time, he’d been so empathetic with what she expressed. He knew the feeling of not being the one. Not only in his romantic side of life but also the life that he had to live alongside his brother and his best friend, Jang Gang.

Kim Yeon and Do-hwa were best friends, too. And he always thought that that sunshine of a woman never had anny type of hatred in her heart but she did have. She was an overlooked beauty, an unrecognized heart. She is so much like him.

The reason why he’d trained so hard during the years was because it frustrated him to not best the only son of the Jang family. He had exceeded the expectations of his parents and became a greater mage than their firstborn but that didn’t earn him the love and attention that he wanted from them, for in their eyes, he is still not great if he couldn’t beat Jang Gang in a duel. He couldn’t beat Jang Gang in love. He couldn’t beat Jang Gang  in his whole life and they aren’t even supposed to be seeing the other as their competition for they were as close as brothers. 

That’s why he understands Kim Yeon. She who is forever overshadowed by the being that is her best friend and young lady. She could never fight with her, never could hate her, even though innocently, that same kind soul is the reason why her entirety breaks.

They’re the same, he thought. But as he kept reading through her print-like words, he knew and understood deeper. It felt like the years he’d known her were being patched up with more that he never knew. And he was even proud enough to say that he’s her best friend too, because no one knows her better than he does. Turns out, he’s missing so much more.

It’s not news that she mimics the sun. She has a smile as bright as her personality and she would never give a person a dull moment except if her clouds show up. But her wit and charm in the way she told her anecdotes were something else. She’s funny, in a sense that it actually makes him laugh. And he’s slow and critical to understand jokes but then there are her punchlines and shallow humor.

It’s not fresh gossip to him either how she’s lived an extremely hard life to be a fan of lavish stuff, but when she stated in her letters that she would give up the world to love a man that gives her only his love, he no longer wanted to dissect that part. After all, it has been Lady Yu Wol who cleared it up to him that Yeon would not be a fan of a life of luxury if it takes a toll on the genuineness of love for her.

She had a father who’s her standard in a lover. She has placed specific qualities of a man in her written stories taht it even involved which position he should be when they’re walking and what texture of hair he has. There was even a mention of his eyes twinkling the color of perfectly-crafted honey biscuits against the nine o’clock sunshine, and how his sword would contain her favorite constellation. All of that. All of which he realized is actually him after all.

“ Mwoya?” He scoffs, “Is this supposed to be me after all?” He’s genuinely surprised and overwhelmed at the same time. He felt his heart race so much that he had to put the parchment face down on the table in front of him just to put that very same hand at the top of his chest, feeling it run wild like a soul shifter. 

Eight letters. One letter per day. The first one he read was when he’s still at her home fortress. That was the last one she wrote, and that was when he realized that her drunk statement of being betrayed by the stars was rooted from that night before Do-hwa and Jang Gang tied the knot. 

The seventh letter was a desperate wish. It was the night she decided to confess her heart to her young master, and wrote a beautiful expectation as to how he would take her words. Park Jin has known her for years, and yet the “smile on his face and twinkle in his eyes as he held my hands out of exhilaration” had been him. Because as she confessed to Jang Gang that day, he also gave his poems to Do-hwa after garnering his courage. And his happiness upon her acceptance of them had him running to a then-disappointed Kim Yeon to tell her the great news. Holding her hands while laughing and being overall thrilled was the reaction she expected from Jang Gang. And yet he’d been the one to give her that.

The sixth one was the day she left the fortress with her lady to take on a new journey, being a physician at Sejukwon. She emphasized in that one how excited she is to finally get out of those walls and meet the man of her dreams, who would promptly walk on her left, have a dashing and rare smile, silky hair that flows perfectly on the corners of his face, and a sword that would contain her favorite set of stars to look at. She did not say which constellation that was, but realizing that it was him who was the first man she met at the gates of Songrim the very same day he saw and fell for Do-hwa and that he has been walking next to her on the left side for every time they’d spend their time together, he might as well have that constellation engraved on his sword since he’s already all of what’s described. He really had to unsheathe his sword that moment, only to stare at it and check if there’s anything that’s shaped like a flower because that would be it for sure.

However, the fifth letter told him so much more about her. It was like knowing her in the pages would be enough to fall in love with her entirely. Her love for plants and missing her late hamster and wanting to have dogs inside her future household that is domminantly pink and blue was his code for her whole personality. She even said that she hopes he doesn’t mind the fur or the barking, and for some unknown reason, it made him smile and go out in the capital later to see if they still sheltered homeless dogs to find new owners for.

The fourth one was quite a challenge he took, because Kim Yeon said that she’d like a husband who cooks scrumptious meals. He cooks, but if it is palatable for her, he is not so sure. So for the rest of the nights that he doesn’t have her on the same bed, he spent them in his private little kitchen to practice. He even planned that since their wedding was approaching, he’d master one dish and have it included in the banquet and in their private first night dinner. 

Three days before the engagement ceremony, he was onto the third one, reading it as tailors measured him for his clothes at the event. A younger Kim Yeon wrote it, for sure, because the paper looked and smelt more kept and old. She said in that letter that she’d love to make them matching clothes that they’d wear even when it’s not their wedding day. She obviously was a sucker in love and every bit of a hopeless romantic as he was at fourteen. Coincidentally, it was the day they were to be made new sets of clothes good for the rest of the first year of their marriage.. So as they finished up with the rest of his measurements, he ordered that everything they make must be a match for them two.

If he didn’t look completely ransacked of his sanity having been replaced by an utterly foolish and fleeting feeling of being head over heels for his future wife, then he doesn’t know how exactly they thought of him at his request.

Yesterday’s letter was her promise to be a good wife. It should’ve been the one that’d have brought him the most ridiculous feeling in his heart because of her loveable approach and personality but it did not match the race of horses in his heart a few minutes before the grand announcement of their betrothement. 

“I will know that it is you when your eyes become the color of perfectly-crafted honey biscuits against the light of a nine o’clock morning sun, just like how my father’s used to. I will know that it is you when my ears hit your heart at our embrace. I will know you like I know the back of my hand, and soon enough how it looks when you’re finally the one who holds it. This is foolish and yet fulfilling, because for a person who’s still wishing to meet the one, I have so much love for you already and I haven’t even laid my eyes upon you yet.”

“So much love for me… since years ago.” He weakly repeats to himself, finding it hard to believe and hard to carry out. 

He doesn’t feel the pressure because this whole thing is a deception, or because he’s not a fan of meeting a swarm of people to announce something about his personal life. He is panicking right now because as great and expensive his prepared gifts are for her, he doubts that they will suffice the value she has given me.

Her love. Her devotion, and her whole self. How can he top that? This is him wishing for more time, or for a cancellation. Because what the hell will he give her? He has to think of it last minute.

But as they say, be careful what you wish for. The cancellation was brought by, and it was a rather unexpected twist of fate.

“Park Jin,” three family heads from the Unanimous Assembly suddenly entered his room. Those three were rather arrogant scumbags who like to prove that they’re better than him and yet constantly gets proven wrong time and time again. So if what they bring is peace and good luck, he’d be surprised.

But they aren’t even invited.

He refocuses himself, comes back to his cold and brooding demeanor. “What can I help you with?”

And as he anticipated, they were smirking at each other.

“You see… The assembly agrees that this engagement with your maid might be a trick to keep Jang Uk.” Says one of them, slowly walking towards him with a dark, cheeky smile.

“Come with us to your secret room. Half of the assembly is there to ask you one simple question,” a proud and rather threatening smile from the other guy.

He kept his cool, even if he already had his suspicions rising to his throat. “And what of the other half?” He asked to clear out his fear.

“They’d be questioning your betrothed the same time as we are. Same question, so you should have the same answer. I trust that you have already rehearsed this since you’re always one step ahead. Right, mister top student?” The third one laughed at his face as he kept himself silent.

That’s the problem. They did not prepare for this surprise.

“Oh, you seem confident. Did you really practice this, Jin? Or did you actually fall in love with that bit–”

“ Ib dakcheo .” The first time he speaks and it was full of stern disdain. He sharply looks at that foolish, foolish man who was quickly intimidated by his short warning. “You are most certainly not trying to call my betrothed wife lowly names to match you, are you?” He smirked boldly.

“Do not be so cheeky, Park Jin. If you fail this test, not only will you be out of betrothement but you’ll lose the chance to ever have any sort of a relationship again.”

As much as he was trying to be complacent, that terrified him to great lengths that he had the feeling written all over his face swiftly. “What are you implying to?”

“Well, since she’s nothing but a servant who was caught in your deal of deception, if the two of you are proven to be playing all of us false, not only will you lose Jang Uk to Cheonbugwan but you will also lose that girl,” the moron even dared to smile. “For good.”

“Or in other words, she’d be a lifeless little whore the next time you see her.”

The wink and the good luck after that did not make him any comfortable.

“What was his answer?” Jin Ho-gyeong carefully whispers the moment her eyes and Wang Shin’s met across the hall.

The other priestess shook her head. “No. You first. What was her answer?”

“I asked you first.” She insisted.

“I came here first.”

She doesn’t even know the point of arguing here when she’s literally pregnant and a currently overemotional casserole.

Ho-gyeong just rolls her eyes and whispers to her the answer.

“So what? What about his answer?”

Death was what the sadness in Wang Shin’s eyes implied.

“They did not have the same answer.”

Chapter Text

It is Do-hwa. She’s the one that has your betrothed’s heart, not you!”

“We all know how head over heels Park jin has always been to Jang Uk’s late mother. No wonder he’s going this far to save what remained of her.”

“No one could ever understand how a man from a wealthy and powerful upbringing would choose to give his heart to just some lowly maid! After having heiresses and noblewomen, especially the most beautiful woman in Daeho as the apple of his eyes? Who would believe he is truly in love with you?”

To have Uk taken away from them if she doesn’t get their one question right is one thing. But pretending that her heart isn’t breaking and going numb at every one of their statements that spoke of the fact that it is not her, but Do-hwa who truly holds his heart is another. 

She couldn’t compose a single lie in her head. She couldn’t make herself believe that eventually, he will open his heart to her the way she has already decided she’d open it up to him. What’s the sense of keeping those feelings away when she will no longer have a choice but to be his wife for the rest of their lives? She wanted this to be easy for her, that’s why when she decided that she is to go all-in in this marriage, she also told her heart that it is time to let go of things that no longer serve her. She must practice having eyes for her husband alone. And he didn’t make that hard for her, at least in the way he could be every living woman’s dream.

But then there’s the bitter truth that though she has thoroughly been offended by the things that Jang Gang did enough for her to lose the deep affection she once had for him, Park Jin’s case is not the same. The woman he loves lived her life in grace and died with it. She has never been mean even once or questionable, and he will never have a reason to hate her memory enough to move on. He will never move on. Not until he can see her little bundle of joy that she brought out into this world right before her death.

Kim Yeon now doesn’t have the energy to cry. Not when she’s surrounded by people who wants to take the biggest part of her heart away. But why did the heavens give them the sum of power enough to make her lose the ability to feel it even when it is still technically hers? 

She could no longer feel the sadness that their words bring. Yes, it does pain her to repeatedly hear what’s true and permanent but it has been said enough times to have the thought burned in her heart. It’s like in just a matter of minutes that she has been subject to an interrogation sided with a fountain of insults and unreasonable doubts, she has already lost her ability to get hurt and is currently immune to anything that concerned Park Jin.

And yet there was Jin Ho-gyeong’s voice of power that swayed her frozen state just a little.

“Shut those mouths,” said the powerful leader of Jinyowon to everyone else. She was the only woman in this group of ten, and quite obviously the most pissed-off and sensitive considering her pregnancy. But if anything, Kim Yeon wanted to take her words as some sort of a shield for her. In this state of complete and utter solitude, she likes to think that the very same, terrifying woman who escorted her to the empty halls of Jeonjingak, is her only ally. 

“Your useless gobbers have said enough nonsense in this gathering. I assume that you wouoldn’t mind if I ask the question and get this done for,” she speaks without even looking at all those men, who are even older than her.

The silence had her thinking that men are afraid of women after all.

Jin Ho-gyeong, who’s sat at the very center of the upper floor, moved her eyes down to look at her who was standing in the middle of the floor, waiting for her question and desperately praying for it to be something that she and Park Jin both know the answer to. 

As if a whole group of mage family heads wouldn’t think of a better and harder resolve. If they do not get this right, she can just go out and try to have the baby again, right?

She did that once. Her dead heart at the moment doesn’t even feel scared and it is even more terrifying to think that she’s not, because it’s as good as a guise to losing hope. She’s fed their words, like they’re trying to bribe her to no longer lie for Park Jin’s sake because after all, there is no love in between them.

Jang Uk is in between them, however. And for that child, they will do whatever it takes.

She owes it to that little boy to at least try.

“You have seen and heard the distaste half of the Unanimous Assembly have expressed regarding your sudden marriage to the leader of Songrim,” Lady Jin starts off. “I would not like to put an addition to that any longer. But it truly is surprising to most of us how he immediately shifted to having immense feelings for Jang Uk’s mother to marrying you, and the word just spread right after he knew of the plans the assembly had for the child, concerning its custody and legal care.”

Lady Jin Ho-gyeong puts her eyes somewhere else for a moment, “come and bring the scroll.” She tells a servant, who immediately fetches her requested scroll. But while it is being conducted, she looks at Kim Yeon again. “The question will be inside the scroll. However, I would like to ask you some foremost clarifications, in  case you want to come clean now.”

Yeon gathers her breath and sharply exhales, nodding.

“You and Park Jin have been betrothed for quite a time now, true? You have professed your feelings for one another way before this situation has come to light?”

She would have loved to hesitate. But then… “Yes, my lady. It was before Uk’s birth. I assure you all that this is not some ploy to deceive all of you and make you let us keep Gwanju Jang Gang’s son. It is merely out of love…” she gulps. That lie was a lump in her throat. “We have been planning to wed ages ago, and it is just now that the world has moved on so we thought it was finally a time to have for ourselves.”

“Preposterous!” Jung Minjun of the Jung family exclaims. “That scheming and smart man? To have his wedding in between these events? This is clearly a planned execution!”

It was followed by another counterfeit. “And ages ago, you say? When would that be? When has he stopped loving his best friend’s wife? He’s scandalous.”

“Jung Minjun and Gu Ho-beom,” it was again, Jin Ho-gyeong. “The two of you are well aware that you can be kicked out of this assembly, correct?” Her sharp eyes paired with their family’s signature eye makeup were as good as knives thrown at those two. “I could motion for your displacement. You most certainly do not like that, do you?”

“You are an overconfident–”

“That’s because I have a lot to be confident about. You?” She shots an eyebrow up.

Old monk Gu had his face all red. “This is why you make no harmonic relationships with our families!”

“I don’t need to.” Her final, fiery statement. 

The scroll was in the powerful woman’s hands even before she ended the dispute. And it was only a matter of seconds now before Kim Yeon accepts either her defeat or her penultimate win.

Jin Ho-gyeong finally opens the scroll and reads it with a mischievous grin on her face.

“We’ll see if you’re telling the truth, Kim Yeon,” she nods at her, “if the two of you are really doing this not for Jang Uk’s keepsake, then I suppose you can tell us how he asked for your hand?”

“Definitely.” He confidently says in front of all his foes. The only people here he’s sure are on his side are Master Heo and Priestess Wang. 

This has got to be the right thing to say.

“ Juin-nim ,” Kim Yeon was surprised to see him outside her quarters that night. It was right after he read her fourth letter, which said that she wanted a husband who can cook. 

He came bearing a container of radish kimchi that he made his own.

“Have you eaten?” He asked ever so gently.

“Yes, I have,” and she replied with the same soft voice.

This is them on a day-to-day basis. His visits matched with homecooked meals might not be a part of every day but this is how they live—separately. They do not sleep in the same bed or eat at the same time. This is how they behave and he thought it would be completely fine for him to stick to this setup but it rings in his heart that calling her his beloved and being overall affectionate towards the woman that she is only in public where people could watch might not entirely be practiced like that.

He believes that if they need to pretend, they have to believe it themselves. Which will be no problem with him since she was going to be his wife after all. 

But then when he thinks of her feelings for another man, he begins to look for safety and that results in him coming back to the memory of being in love with someone who already broke his heart. He thinks he doesn’t need more of that now.

“It is bedtime, why are you here?” She asks. She was once again in her sleepwear, but he’s glad she’s past loathing him seeing her in those thin robes. 

The woman is beautiful, and he doesn’t need to be drunk to see that.

Her porcelain skin glows under the late-night skies and her hair falls perfectly on all the right places. She has a mark on her left cheek, plump pink lips that looked dry. Seeing her like this makes him crave her warmth. He’s so senseless when he thinks that he likes to kiss her, and he just stands there right in front of her like he’s struck by an immobilizing spell.

“ Juin-nim ,” she calls out, waving her hand in front of his eyes. “I was asking you what your business here is at this hour.”

You. He shrugged that off.

“Didn’t we agree to calling me your husband?”

“Why? Who’s watching?” She extended her eyes to the far east and west. No one was around. “Well nobody  can hear. And besides, you’re not actually my husband yet.”

He inhales big. “Well, I wanted to give you this,” he hands her the bag of kimchi and proudly smiles. “I made that myself. And I’m here to see Uk, too.”

She seemes fairly surprised. “W-Well… he’s not yet asleep. But I don’t think you can take him outside, it’s cold–”

“Why? Can I not go inside?” This is literally my land. Why am I not welcome?

She swallows quietly and panics. “Sure then,” and then steps away from the doorstep. He quickly graces the entrance and directs himself to Uk who already made happy noises upon perhaps sensing him.

“How is my little prince?” That was the start of spending at least a quarter of an hour playing and talking to the boy like he understood him. He never felt Kim Yeon’s presence leave but she just watched from a distance until Uk ached to be in her arms at the drop of his drowse.

“I asked for her hand…” he raises his eyes up at them all,”...using a poem.”

“You are my moonlight on a midsummer night
And the cold wind when the blizzard starts.
My everything and my nothing all at once.
Will you bring me to your arms?
I want to call it home.”

Her soothing voice never fails to render him in awe, adding that to her ethereal glow as she put the child down in his crib, knocked out with that lullaby.

He stayed, just to satiate the thirst of his heart to be with her and know her better.

“Do you know why I was irrationally mad at you when I heard you singing that song the first time?” He started to reminisce that day he saw her in the living room, cleaning the vases and tabletops. He looks at Kim Yeon presently, “that was supposed to be the poem I use to ask for Do-hwa’s hand.”

He smiled at the thought. Such a sweet smile that brought back old and innocent memories. 

She did not seem to enjoy that, however. “What a time to talk about it, we’re days away from our betrothement celebration,” she shrugs sarcastically with that toothless smile.

But Park Jin is Park Jin. And it is his trait to buffer, not being able to read the room. “I would have professed my devotion to her on a bright spring day, in the middle of a lavender field. I’d bend down on one knee and ask her if she agrees to take me in her arms so I could call it home.”

She chuckles airily. “Romantic,” and that was her only reaction before a long period of silence.

Yet she followed it with a final rhetoric. “Did you tell me that so I could expect a better or a worse proposal from you?”

He keeps thinking about that moment as he stayed in the secret room, sitting on the stone table after the assembly left to verify his and Kim Yeon’s answer.

It is just now that he realized that her statement that night was a sign of pure hurt. He had offended her by stating his old dream of proposing to Do-hwa when they were days away from now.

“ Jebal ,” he whispers under his breath, keeping the tears in. “I now know that I hurt you with that, but please… Please, Kim Yeon,” a hand around her hairpin that he’d been keeping with him all this time gripped on it tighter. 

He did not give her a proper proposal and instead told her a memory that never happened. They know each other the best, he trusts. So he knows that she said the same thing. She has to have said the same thing. Because if she didn’t, she’d die.

“I can’t lose you, so please,” he doesn’t even know where he’s sending his prayers at now.

But for some reason, they were heard and granted.

“ Cheonsungnim.” The mage that ran in the room was finally one of his own men. His right hand, Ssang Ho, who panted at his arrival. “You’re free to go,” his smile was so merry. Yet that wasn’t enough for Park Jin.

His chest rose and fell aggressively. “What about Kim Yeon?”

And moments later, he found himself running to the lakeside.

Under the pitch-black skies, surrounded by torches that fought the fog and fireflies that kept her company was his betrothed wife. Alive.

But seeing her stand still was not enough for him. He froze and stared for some time before the name bravely escaped his cold lips.

“Kim Yeon…”

She turns around. 

And to run to her is the most sane thing a man like him could do. 

Park Jin imprisoned her in his arms. One hand around her waist and the other on her hair. She was motionless and he was starting to worry if she was truly alive until he felt her warm breath sinking in his clothes.

“Kim Yeon,” he called again, like his life depended on it. His right hand slipped up and down her head, pulling her closer though she was unresponsive. He pulls back after some time and looks at her with his worry written all over his face. “Are you alright? Did they do something to you?” His eys intently scanned her whole being as his hands stayed on either shoulders. Yeon did not bother answering him though, he thinks she’s way too shocked and overwhelmed.

Jin looks at her beautiful face and traced what she’s been through. She looks lifeless thought thankfully, she is not. And he’s just thankful of that, making him pull her back into his shelter.

“Thank you,” he whispers next to her ear, squeezing his eyes shut. “Thank you. Fuck. Thank you so much,” pulls her closer.

“Thank you…” he exhales in relief, finally.

He had eight letters from her, his future wife. 

Maybe those eight letters had to be words after all. Soon. it’ll be that. But for now…

“Thank you.”

“Kidding. They said the same thing, surprisingly.”

Ho-gyeong was quick to grant her a smack on the shoulder. “I hate you so much!” She said out of solace, at last. But her anger as a pregnant woman could never rub off just like that. “You ass! I thought for a moment there that–”

“I thought you didn’t care for Park Jin anymore?” Wang Shin, as quick as how she was hit, asked that.

“I don’t! I am married.”

“Okay, then why are you so concerned?” She pouts, spiting.

“I am concerned for the child. There is now way I am letting my bastard of a brother raise that child,” her eyes darkened.

“You were willing to cause a distraction or something if their answers don’t match just for Jang Uk? I’m surprised.”

The Jinyowon leader was clearly offended. “Why would you be? I am not that mean!”

“So you admit that you are mean,” Shin smiles cheekily, earning her another strike from Ho-gyeong’s heavy hands. “Ouch! Why is violence always your answer?” 

“Because I am an emotional, pregnant woman and you’re spiting me to death.”

“Okay, emotional pregnant woman who I'm spiting to death, let’s go back to your home because my niece and your daughter might be digging up your ancestor’s bones without us knowing,” she turns around, offers her arm for Lady Jin to cling to. “Also so you can rest. Shall we?”

Chapter Text

It feels like it’s been forever. But forever only starts now.

A long and bumpy ride was what he had with her for a span of only months… However, when he looks back to the years that she had been present in his life, it is more than that. They’ve been there from the start. And to spend the rest of eternity together with the person he always had and held would no longer be a challenge. In fact, to do life with her is going to be just a seamless course of pain. 

A day between the seasons of autumn and winter is what marks their marriage. The end of colors, the fall of feathers and leaves and the withering of flowers; Skies full of clouds where the sun would barely show up, yet not a single trace of snow to at least grace the celebration with something falling from the skies. Because if he’s being real, he knows how much she still fancies things coming from the high up mystery even though she professed the end of her journey wishing upon shooting stars. 

The world was supposed to be all pale and blue. But for his wife , he vowed that there’s nothing he wouldn’t do.

He donned a bright blue hanbok at the processional, matching with all the floral colors he has talked to the wedding planners about. He wanted all corners of the place to be filled with flowers of different varieties. And just like how Lady Yu Wol made those balsam flowers grow in her garden at a snap of a finger, he introduced his mages to that same spell, so they could grow and resurrect every dying flower in the cold of this early winter. He made sure that all the bright red and pink flowers would grace her boat, and even though he was not able to see her during the cortege, he’s sure that she was the bride the townspeople were showering with even more petals and yelling for, telling her she’s beautiful.

She is beautiful.

The festive music became a slow, romantic tune as she stepped down from her ride. She was assisted by multiple servants for the weight of her magenta-colored dress that was accented with bright sapphire colors just as his own clothing was decorated with subtle pinks to match hers. The whole fitting itself screamed that they were the ones to become one this day. She was for him as he was for her.

In the presence of many, he waited for her up the temple. His father and Master Heo both stood by his side shortly before taking their seats surrounding the stage. He is not forcing the feeling to come out. In fact, he’s trying to repel it. He can’t be out of his league, not right now. But it’s a beautiful day. It’s something he will commemorate forever. And to wait for his betrothed who’s steps away from becoming his wife while his heart raced like stallions in the field will be a permanent reminder as to why he chose this, and why he is at this moment.

To protect Do-hwa and Jang Gang’s son, that was his first and foremost reason. But after suffering the feeling of having been on the verge of losing the one person he knows he can no longer function properly without, he knows that keeping her is a greater talk for him now. It may not be the reason why this had to be done, but he gets the feeling that soon enough, it will be that. He admits that this was never a part of his plan, yet since he’s already here, what is there to fear? 

“In front of everyone that bears witness to this day, I promise to hold your hand and never let it go, for as long as I am able to grasp it.” He looks her straight in the eye. It was never his skill to look deep into the windows of people’s souls and sense the emotion that hides behind them but the shine of her eyes due to tears she did not want to release were for him, just an overwhelming feeling of joy. 

After all, she always wanted to be a married woman.

He squeezed her hands as he said that part of his vow, and prepared for the reply she had in her sleeves.

For a moment, he felt a tinge of dissatisfaction. For there wasn’t a smile on her face. He doesn’t have that smile as well, because he forgets how to do it especially in front of a lot of people he’s used to ruling. But normally, Kim Yeon would offer him that; she’d offer everyone that. And yet just as she’s about to say her vows, it’s gone.

"I have wished and waited for so long for you, and I never anticipated that you'd come this way. I wasn't prepared. For me, it's still just a quick gush of wind even though we've been here for the most time I could remember." Her tone of voice was as happy as it gets, but no emotion was there as she faced him.  "I do not have a way with my words like you do. And I am most certainly not all about promises. However, I would like to let you know that I will be here and I will do my best to keep our boat afloat. I will do this with you, Park Jin, by taking your hand and walking at your pace. Witnessed by everyone surrounding us, I vow to you myself, if you'll have me."

But then the latter part of the vow did the thing for him. Slowly, it elicited a small smile from his lips, not enough to reveal the deep lines on his cheek, though, but it was there. They faced the townspeople holding hands, and while his other half looked at the people closest to them who were sat in the aisle nearest to where they were standing up, he looked farther. He looked at those jerk members of the Unanimous Assembly, who did not have a choice but to attend their wedding ceremony in full support. Although they are in one row together with the acting Gwanju, Jin Mu, who he thinks was the mastermind of the surprise interrogation that happened so abruptly, his half sister, Jin Ho-gyeong, seemed close friends with his years-long close friend Wang Shin ad sat with her by the second aisle, just adjacent to his blood relatives’ position. After their respective little girls made friends and survived a somehow catastrophic event together, it appears as if they were given no choice but to have that kind of relationship as well.

He smiled as he looked at them applauding. Ho-gyeong and Shin are as good as each other’s mirrors. They both are fierce and terrifying as women. But he spots a difference between the way they execute those traits. Shin is bold, daring, and cheeky, while Ho-gyeong is classy and quiet—the way she’s always been. 

Having that thought in mind, he suddenly shifts his gaze from the woman to his woman. Kim Yeon waved at Uk, who’s being carried by her now mother-in-law who, just like her, loves kids to an unbelievable extent. The married couple that were his parents sat alongside each other, with his father holding his nephew Park Dang-gu, who’s a few months younger than Uk; and his mother holding Uk herself. Jang Uk waved back to his mom at his sitting position and had such a sweet smile on his face, which was reciprocated. Throughout the whole ceremony, it was the first time he saw Kim Yeon smile sweetly at anyone. 

The feast began proceeding their exchange of vows. Performances were conducted at the town center, which had the most talented entertainers from Chwiseonru and other most-favored places. They have received their gifts starting from the royal palace members down to the local families that adored their love, though it is still a process to become that.

But he loves her now, doesn’t he? He loves her as a dear friend, and now his companion through everything. He loves her as the other half who’s going to take care of the life that’s entrusted to them. 

He loves her, at least to that level now. And he’s sure that that love will grow throughout their many ventures to come. And since she’s already a permanent part of his life from now on, she deserves more than the gifts that will be sent to their place come morning, but a gift from her groom himself.

Park Jin has prepared for this moment from when he was still at Wol Fortress. He was introduced there as a well-off mage and he didn’t look like he was a product of a lie either. So when he has made some friends there, he was asked that if he’s really that sickeningly rich, then why does his wife not have a ring to determine that she’s a married woman? When he arrived there, he didn’t wear one either, so he could no longer say that Kim Yeon just took hers off and threw it wherever out of anger. There was really nothing.

And so right after the currents washed them back to the capital, he took his time to talk to a jeweler to craft him the best pair of rings using his most prized stone in possession. At first, the old man refused to give it to him despite his messengers being sent back and forth to offer higher prices. That was until he went there personally.

The weird thing is that the second the jeweler saw him, he didn’t even want to make him pay, saying that the precious gem was meant to be for him and that it was already very old, kept in his shelf yet never once befitted anyone that wanted it. As if it’s choosing the one to own it. He had to tell himself it was no longer a marketing talk because the old man really didn’t want something in return, but honestly, he didn’t find the stone anything special. In fact, he wanted the jade, for it was shinier and classier to look at. But there’s a tug in his heart for the other stone offered to him.

After all, it might really be something.

He would’ve presented that on or before the wedding, but he has decided that the exchange be in between just them two. So as he patiently waited for her in their grand chambers as a married couple for their first dinner and the sharing of liquor that would mark their permanence as each other’s, he grasped the box of rings tightly in his hands. The fancy supper was in front of him yet he didn’t start, he kept containing his silly heart patterns inside his chest.

“I should give her a binyeo , too.” He muttered as he realized that it should have been his primary gift to his bride. But that can wait. He’s still holding on to her other binyeo from when they almost rushed their first night pre-marriage. He just can’t help but smile thinking that this will be the night they actually become one. 

He’s now in his new white robes, fresh out of the bath chambers. He has prepared for tonight. And he promised that he will only drink a cup of liquor for tradition. After that, he’d kiss and touch her while conscious and very much awake.

To put an end to his excitement, the doors opened for his wife. And he thought he saw an angel for a second there.

Kim Yeon… Park Yeon, rather, made his whole world stop the moment she raised her eyes at him. 

The spotless white silk matched her fair skin so well. She held the weight of the skirt using her fists on both sides of her hips, revealing her covered feet as she removed her shoes to enter. Her long, black hair were sea waves of dark brown all over her back. Some of it was scattered on her left shoulder, down to her chest. There’s a white clip that held the shape of the same luscious locks over her forehead. Her lips were ready to be kissed as they were red and plump, as if they’re begging for attention.

He gulped as she entered the room and without pause, got closer and closer to him.

He knew that she was so ready to devour him right there and then, but she just went for the cupful of liquor at her front, dunked it empty, and then refilled it.

Her mouth got wet from the beverage, and she ever so quickly wiped that, looking at him straight in the eye with nothingness in them.

Yeon pushed the drink towards him, “please drink your share, so we can get this over with.”

Surprised and pressured, he nods and obeys, taking the cup and facing his left to drink.

When he finished it, the woman just flatly bowed and never made eye contact again. “Thank you, my lord. You may now retire for the day–”

“What? Why?” He was alerted. And then she turned back at him. “Wait!” He runs after her, catching her wrist, but he doesn’t turn her right back.

He waited. For the first time in his life, he has decided he’d waste his time on a person just so he can be an understanding one for her.

Quietly, he starts his inquiry. “W-why? We’re not done for tonight just yet.”

She still doesn’t turn around. “We are. The hapgeunrye is the last step to formalizing the marriage. We just did that.”

“But…” he was breathless. She was right.

“Do you want me tonight, Juin-nim ?” 

She did not have any business making her voice that sultry asking that. He almost said yes, but it clashed with her louder voice. “Because I am afraid that I don’t. I do not desire to sleep with you. Pardon me, but what we did before already left me a big mistrust upon what we are to do now. Even if you are sobernow, I wouldn’t risk hearing another woman’s name from you again as you enjoy what I have to offer.”

He refused to let go of her wrist though his grip weakened at her statement.

He was just… speechless.

“Do not worry, for I will still fulfill my end of the agreement. We will pretend to be affectionate towards each other when there are people watching, and I assure you, I wouldn’t fail that,” she slowly twists her head over her shoulder, but never meeting his eyes. “However, tonight is witnessed only by us. There is no need to be intimate. No one will know whether or not we spent the night together so grant me this one, my lord. I do not wish to consummate the marriage with you tonight. So if you may…” she was pertaining to his hand, still around her forearm. He quickly let that go. As if he can do anything now.

His wife continued to walk forward, but suddenly stopped to face him.

“Also, I would not be sleeping in the same bed nor living under the same roof as you for the rest of this setup. Expect to find me with Uk every time you need me for something,” she bows and goes her way now. “Have a peaceful sleep.”

Park Jin stares at their rings that were left in the cold like him.

She overthought things. Last night, she didn’t even have a peaceful sleep just like the one she wished him.

Yeon gets ready for another day. She wished for her attendants to have their rest after a long day at their wedding, just so she could have an excuse to not have anyone know about how she turned down their supposed-to-be first night together.

As per usual, she wore her layers of clothes. It’s getting colder these days so she made sure to wear thicker ones and even added some more skirts. Every now and then, she would stop and look at herself. Her nails are bright orange due to the pigment that the balsam flowers used to paint them days ago left. Her neck and ears are graced with jewelry, and she’s called “milady” now by servants who she used to be before.

It’s all so overwhelming. When she went to the kitchen which is her well-known territory, she was blocked by the workers and said that she shouldn’t get her hands on dirty work. She wanted to prepare her baby boy;s morning bath but they also had to steal that from her. 

“You are the new lady of Daeho’s most prominent establishment now, so you have to get used to it.” Park Ji-yoon, Jin’s mother, sat beside her at the gazebo that she thought she inhabited alone. Uk was on her lap as she stared at the air and thought of all the things she’d missed doing. But the older lady then appeared by her side, carrying her grandson, Park Dang-gu. Yeon was startled, but it’s her muscle memory to smile.

“Madam,” she bows, but she is stopped midway.

“ Eomoni , Yeon-ah. Call me that from now on.” The sweet, sweet woman said. 

Suddenly, all these nice projections surprise her. Park Jin’s parents themselves aren’t a single bit shady and it’s honestly making them all the more suspicious.

“You are a beautiful young lady. I’m glad that you are the one that my son married. I was so worried he’d not give us grandchildren. Not that I’m pushing you,” she smiled sheepishly. 

Kim Yeon did not see that coming, absolutely not. She just said no to ever having skinship with her new husband and now they’re talking grandchildren.

Suddenly, she looked at the other boy who’s supposed to be Jin’s nephew. “May I ask… Where are Dang-gu’s parents?”

She actually feels comfortable talking to her mother-in-law.

“Well, they’re going through a rough patch right now. They are newlyweds as well, but they conceived Dang-gu before that. That’s why Jin had to be the leader of Songrim when his father stepped down. His older brother is quite… irresponsible.” Lady Park meant worse than that, she can sense.

“Oh? Is that so? I am so sorry for asking…” she was quick to apologize.

“No, actually, it’s a great opener for what I want to tell you,” Jin’s mother put a hand above hers. “As you know, we weren’t really able to talk yesterday at your wedding ceremony. But I want to tell you that I am so glad my Jin married you. I don’t know, I just feel like you give him so much love. It’s something he didn’t really get, and that is my mistake. So please, Yeon. Will you promise me? Please stay in love with my child. I don’t want him to get hurt worse.”

That was more unexpected, but… “Of course, Mad– I mean, mother.”

The woman smiled softly in relief, showing her shallow dimples that are identical to Jin’s. “And just so you know, my husband and I do not care at all about your status before being married into our family. In case you think that.” 

Yeon nods, her heart heaping up and down.

After that conversation, they enjoyed their time making the two boys play. There were only two of them in that arbor late in the morning. Dang-gu and Uk crawled and wrestled all over the place until surprisingly, it was her Uk that hit Dang-gu’s soft arm causing him to burst into tears.

After all, Uk is months older than Dang-gu.

Park Ji-yoon swiftly attended to her grandchild, talking to him the way she talks to Uk—like those precious infants understand them. Over the course of Dang-gu’s loud crying, footsteps approached their place.

Her husband, worried.

“Goodness. I thought it was my son!” He exhaled, frustrated.

“Well? It’s your nephew. That still counts,” his mother said so casually. “Where does it hurt, Danggu-ya? Here? Come, I’ll kiss it. It’ll take the pain away,” she tells Dang-gu. None of them actually cared, because she and Jin were stuck staring at each other, not moving, not knowing what exactly to do.

Luckily, he moved first. “Good morning, my sunshines,” he flaps one arm abroad, inviting her and Uk in his embrace. She quickly moves to his space but accidentally bumps Uk’s spiky hair to Jin’s eye. “Ouch!” He exclaimed. His left eye closed abruptly.

To Yeon’s surprise, Jin faced the direction of his mom. “ Eomoni ,” he called like a child. “My eye hurts. Uk’s hair stabbed it. Ow,” he frowns.

Ji-yoon and Yeon both look at each other in surprise, acknowledging the hilarity of the situation.

“Mother, I think I need the magic kiss,” he kept squeezing his closed eye shut, insinuating that he’s in pain.

Yeon smiles quietly. Such a baby .

“Ya, Park Jin,” his mother yells. “Aren’t you too old for that?”

“No,” he says straight-up, making them laugh.

“Well then why do you ask me? You are a married man! At least ask your wife to do the honors. Right, Yeon?” 

She choked at her laughter when the weight of the situation was directed to her. “ Ne?”

“Sure.” Jin took small steps to her and then faced her. He scanned her, head to toe. “Will you put Ukie down? He might take my other eye out,” he snatches Uk from her and places him on the carpet, quickly coming back to her.

They were again, inside her personal space. His hands on her shoulders, his eyes reflecting her own.

“Kiss,” he says, pointing to his left eye.

Her eyes circled, whispering, “what are you talking about?”

And Jin replied with a quieter note. “My mother’s watching. Go on,” he pushes his face closer to her lips.

Yeon looked at Park Ji-yoon’s direction and was disappointed to see her intently observing them. She smiled and breathed in Park Jin’s scent. 

I promise I’d hold my end of the bargain. That’s what she holds on to.

So in one, swift move, she put her lips on his eye. The moment she pulled back, her hand was on her mouth. And Jin’s eyes were both open to find her with such a face.

His eyes sparked worry. “Why? Did I hurt your lips?” His hand immediately found its place on the side of her chin, framing her jaw gently. “Does it hurt, wife?” He ran a thumb over her lower lip, making all her insides shiver. 

Park Jin , she wanted to scream. But before she could, his lips were already on hers, quieting her down for three seconds.

After that, she was totally silent.

Park Ji-yoon broke that for them. “I think I should leave you two alone,” she shyly smiles and takes Dang-gu down with her.

And yet Yeon still can’t keep her eyes off of her husband, the way he can’t as well.

Park Jin smiles, “that was a good one.”

What was a good one?!

Chapter Text

Being the head servant of the Jang family household for the span of years that Do-hwa and Jang Gang were married, Yeon is acquainted with quite a lot of personalities from different families. She is fond of the many young masters and ladies and knows each of their servants. The families she does trading with prior to her marriage to Park Jin are all close to her to the point where they can actually share a meal.

She is a kind soul overall, so when these people invited her to lunch and leisure a week after her wedding, she knew she had to go. After all, she missed them. And she will have to be settling matters upon the Jang household since she is still its maidservant. The only difference now is that she’s a married woman and the new lady of Songrim. But since she’s still Jang Uk’s guardian, she couldn’t just abandon her duties to everything he will soon have to govern himself.

When she arrived at Chwiseonru, however, she didn’t look like a married woman with a eight-month-old child to take care of at all. Instead, her looks made it seem  as if she’s available to any man and is currently in the search for a partner. Heads turn to her direction wherever she passes. And honestly, it’s quite a bothersome sensation.

“Aigoo! Our pretty Yeon-ah!” The first greeting she hears insinuated the shy feeling in her. It’s Mi-hee, the current owner of the capital’s most visited inn and her closest friend amongst the few ladies that invited her to this little get-together, had her own little six-year-old Ju-wol walking with her hand-in-hand as she approached Yeon for an embrace. The lady quickly threw daggers at the men day-drinking in her inn using her eyes. “Ya! Stop ogling at her like that! Do you know Park Jin? That’s right! The most powerful mage of Songrim. That’s her husband, you asses! Get back to work, break time’s over!” She almost removed her shoe and threw it at them the same. 

Quite embarrassed, she tries to calm her friend down. “Mi-hee, don’t you think that’s too—”

“What? It’s true. You’re the Daeho’s most sought-after mage’s wife now,” Mi-hee smiles so mischievously. “You look even more beautiful now, Yeon-ah! I’m so envious!” The glow of genuine happiness for her was so visible she could almost touch it. Mi-hee has always been her most fun friend. And perhaps, for the first time in a few months, this is the first time she smiles upon feeling young again.

Not that she has aged so drastically, but she just felt caged and stressd in her state after everything she had to go through for Uk. Being told that she’s pretty after her recovery of things makes her blush, since it could also be the first time that people actually notice her looks as they are, not as some drunk man telling her she’s beautiful because he sees another woman through her projection.

Yes, she’s never going to be over that. Not when she had to be married to the same guy that every day makes her feel like she could only ever live under the shadow of the woman he once loved. The hugs, the kisses, the child that they share… they all came from the same person who’s the source of his will to live. Call her sensitive, but for someone who has devoted herself to the man she will live with and for, ending up with a person who can’t even look at her without seeing somebody else is hell forever. 

“Oh look at you!” Han-seol exclaimed, assisting her to sit down on the center chair. Every one of her friends here brought their kids with them, which are about the same age as her Uk. She’s the only one who doesn’t have her child to carry.

“Where’s your little prince? We thought you’d bring him over,” Ryeong pulled a long face upon that statement. She’s Yeon’s friend who’s been trying for a son, but is instead granted with consecutive baby daughters. That’s why she’s just that sad to see that her handsome baby boy isn’t around for the celebration.

She originally planned on taking Uk with her, but then there’s his other parent.

“Well… His dad wanted to–”

“Oh, wow, I am in tears.”

“My heart and soul.”

“Dad. I think I have to pray in the temple.”

Their simultaneous reactions brought her butterflies. It was clearly a heart-fluttering thing to say, since it’s a well-known fact that they aren’t the real parents of the child. She understands that they feel so satisfied and weak hearing that, because she, too, was stunned by the way Jin said his piece getting Uk from her.

“I’m going to see some friends,” she said full of pride even though it eats her alive to say that in front of his face. Deep in her heart, he’s still the young master she respects, and it’s not likely for a servant like her to say these things. Not when originally, she just had her fair share of break schedules to enjoy some time alone.

And she’s a mother now. She doesn’t want to be labeled neglectful when she has risked her life too many times for Uk. Not now and not ever, so she was stern at her decision to just take him to wherever she goes. She’d have mages surrounding her anyway.

Despite her overthinking the things he’d reply, the tables turned at his calmness. Like it’s an everyday thing. “I know,” he says, even lively at that. 

“Then why wouldn’t you let me take Uk?” Her anger dialled down due to surprise. Why is he so good at handling her fire? Even when she thinks he still doesn’t trust her for the child after the incident at Danhyanggok, he seems past that already. 

“Well, your arms will get sore carrying him around. Look how big he is already,” he smiles as he throws Uk in the air lightly, showing her how heavy the baby really is. Though it sparked worry in her, Uk’s laughter made her heart at ease. He was even attacked with kisses by Jin as he laughed his lungs out resulting in his small voice screaming so happily with his short limbs extending everywhere.

She hates how much the sight of them being playfully affectionate makes her heart feel like it’s going to explode. 

“I can do shifts with his attendants carrying him,” her defense now, looking at the servants that waited for her to finally leave while she waited for Jin to let go of Uk.

“Yeon-ah, don’t you think you deserve some time for yourself–”

“No,” she motions her hands to steal Uk, but he had been quick to shield him.

“Okay, then don’t you think he deserves some alone time with daddy?” He flashed his puppy eyes at her, melting her ice-cold feelings in an instant. “Uk-ah, tell mommy we’ll just bond,” he even used the child. That’s double her Achilles’ heel now. 

It took her five seconds to hold her breath before finally going down with a yes. “Fine,” she rolled her eyes, then directed them to her attendants. “Please go forth and wait for me by the gates.” And back to Park Jin she glares. “If you fly him to anywhere without any gear at all–”

“No, ma’am,” he firms up, but grinning still, placing another kiss on Uk’s cheek that she vetoed against.

“Hey, did you even shave?” She takes Uk’s face between her palms, worried about his sensitive skin, and then glares at Jin again, inspecting his own skin if there are any spikes of hair at all. They were already growing but not out enough because she just made him take those off a few days ago, since it’s his worrisome habit to attack Uk with kisses. 

“I’ll clean up in my bath, promise.” When he spoke, that’s just the very moment she realized that her head’s just inches away from his own and he could steal a kiss again if he wanted to. To her luck, he used Uk instead. “Mommy will get going now, buddy, how about we give her a kiss?”

“Ya, Park J–”

“Mwah!” She was surprised by Uk’s wet kiss on her cheek, being conducted by Jin. She thought that the man would follow after but he didn’t, he simply asked something. “What time are you coming home?”

Questions like that make her reestablish her walls. “Why would I tell you?”

“So I can prepare our dinner."

She scoffs, "like you're my husband."

"I am your husband."

"Sure, because I'm your wife and the mother of your child." she fakes a laugh, "pretty damn realistic."

She left just like that. She left him confused and she left them on shaggy terms. That's got to be her personality for months now because every time she acts mean towards him even if she knows that it's the right thing to do to protect her heart, she is unsuccessful. Park Jin just keeps lingering in her mind: his little frown and the sudden heavy exhales, the way he knocks his head on the wooden wall thinking that he fucked up big time… He did. It's really his fault that she's hurt and as a result, projecting coldness towards him. But she just can't bear it. Why must it be like this?

She came here to enjoy. He even stole Uk from him not only to spend some dad-son time with their little bundle of joy but also for her to have her own quality time without a needy infant to worry about at least for a day. And yet everything that runs in her mind is him. She didn't even tell him when she'd come back. What if he really prepared dinner back there? What if he waits for her? 

"Yeon, you'll be back after sundown, come on," she bites her lip, frustrated. Stop thinking about him.  

It was already afternoon, perhaps three hours away from finally coming back home. They had quite a lot to talk about over the table earlier that's why they have spent a bit too much time chatting, and it's just now that they can shop around the capital. 

While everyone was eagerly getting clothes and cosmetics that she had as gifts for her wedding, his deep dimples just had to flash at the back of her eyes again. 

She refused to properly conduct their wedding night. That's a win, because she didn't have anything to give him. He had already given her a scarf at their engagement ceremony to wear in the winter and yet here she is, finding herself cold without it around her neck. Jin for sure had a gift for her, too, supposed to be given on their wedding night had she not cut it so short.

She hasn't given him anything yet, and it just painfully adds to her guilt right now.

"If I give him something first, I lose," she starts talking her own self out of it, just so she won't do something foolish again. But is it really foolish to follow tradition? "Whatever. I'd just wait for him to give his gift first. For now, I'll get him something so I won't have to worry about it anymore. That's right."

And so she goes to shop for something. Anything. But her too-picky self finds it hard to actually like an item to give to him. The man has got the world in his hands. He gets what he wants and never begs. He can obtain anything with just a snap of a finger. What else is missing in his life? 

It's not that he doesn't appreciate cheap things. Heck, does he even know whether one thing is cheap or not? Even so, she doesn't want to give him something that isn't valuable. She's sure that everything he gave her is expensive. Not that it matters, but she wants to at least be competitive enough about that. 

"You're spacing out," says Sooyoung to her left. Well, she really has spaced out.

"I'm just thinking…"

"Of?"

"Something to give Jin." To her surprise, the truth actually came out of her mouth like butter, and she wasn't even aware. 

"Stop." Sooyoung rolls her eyes. "You two are so in love, it's making me shiver." 

Of course we are. She fakes another smile. I'm just guilty.

Still, her friend came up with an idea to offer. "Well, what about uhm… A pair of shoes or something?" 

"I don't know how big his feet are."

"An accessory?"

"He's already filthy rich for that."

"Well then…" but the woman ran out of suggestions. "You know what? Don't bother buying him anything. Just sleep with him when you get back home. Give him an entire performance—"

"Sooyoung-ah!"

"What? Aren't you married?" 

She was silent.

"Don't tell me you haven't—"

"We have! But…" We haven't. "Everyone can hear you!" 

"Really?" Sooyoung gives her a devilish grin. "How is he then? I bet he's excellent in bed—"

"Oh, my goodness." Yeon gets tired of it and walks away. "I'm not talking about this."

"Ya! Kim Yeon-ah!" She laughs after her. "At least give him something sentimentally valuable!" 

That still echoed in her ears and appealed in her heart as she continued walking through swarms of people that visited the market early evening of course to shop for fresh ingredients for their supper. She's thinking of Park Jin again now, isn't she? He must be preparing the dinner she made clear she'd not attend. 

The past week after their wedding, they've been running things smoothly. They take shifts to take care of Uk and it honestly makes her living lighter except for midnights when he'd wake up. He's growing day by day, and he's developing more violent limbs, a louder voice, and longer cries. She told Jin she wants to have Uk with her in bed because that's the way it's always been. But in those frequent moments that he wakes up and cries like there's no end to that, she knows she needs Jin to sing him back to sleep.

Though she never asks for his help. She understands that he needs his nighttime rest just as desperately because more than fathering a child, he also fathers a hundred mages a day in their training. He settles the business that circulates in Songrim and is even responsible for every magical crime that happens all over Daeho.

Acknowledging her distaste in him that's been going on for a long time now, he cooks his own food so that she wouldn't have to. She doesn't know why he picked up that hobby so randomly but he seems to be enjoying it. He'd send her food every day and she doesn't eat them because they don't taste like anything, they just taste like seasalt. Also the reason why she’d rather have the cooks prepare their young master’s meal than have Park Jin feed him something.

Perhaps his cooking is his only flaw. But other than that? She can’t say anything else. If they find her husband so perfect, that’s because he is. 

“My husband,” she repeats verbally. Every time she hears that phrase, she looks back to when they didn’t know each other. But when was that? When did they ever not know each other? She doesn’t even remember the moment they first met. Because it seems like he just popped out of nowhere like a mushroom and from then on, they were best friends.

They really were best friends, weren’t they?

And now she’s not even claiming him as her husband.

“I feel so bad right now. And it’s so cold, too.” With her arms crossing over her chest to give her shoulders gentle rubs on the both of them, the heavens shed light to her situation.

She’s been strolling around for longer than she planned, and it looks like what she wants to find can’t be found in the market itself, but in someone’s hands.

“ Ahgassi,” such innocent voice. It was a little boy fighting for his life. He’s not even wearing appropriate clothes for the weather and he’s covered in grease and dirt and yet he still managed to stand the cold, offering her something

Her heart quickly wanted to jump out and pour him with her love. She’s reminded both of herself and Uk. What if the world left him? What if nobody wanted him and there’s nobody like her who’d shed every drop of blood she has to shelter him? 

The boy has been running around the capital, and in his hands is a clean piece of blue fabric that’s about as long as half her height. He appears to be selling it off. 

“Kindly take this scarf, young lady. I can give it to you for how much you want to pay for it, as long as it is enough to keep me alive at least for the night,” he bows. “I promise, I didn’t steal this from somewhere. My mother used to make these but now I don’t know where she’s gone. Please, ahgassi , I want to find her. Please help me. I still want to see her.”

Unbearable sympathy escaped her eyes in the form of sharp tears. Suddenly, she felt the warmth all over her face and it travelled down to her chest where it hurt. Seeing the boy beg her made her see so much of herself back when she lost her father. 

“Aigoo,” she crouches down to see the child clearer. Behind his eyes were tears so nearly dripping down, Despite his unclean state, she tried to touch his face and wipe his cheeks of the marks of his tears dried down on there. “How long has your mother been missing?” She asks.

“Since the morning, my lady. She told me to wait for her here, but she has never come back since.”

Yeon looks up at the mage and maidservant that escorted her. She stands up and acquires her own silver nyangs, not bothering to count them anymore, she just dropped a few of it on her palm and gave it to the child who, in exchange, gave her the carefully-folded scarf. 

She wants to take him in so badly. But it seems like he’s still going to wait. She just figured out that perhaps, when he’s still alone around here next morning, she’ll take him in as a servant. But for now…

“Buy yourself some food, and you may take this scarf now because it’s cold–”

“No, young lady. Thank you, but that is what I have to give you in exchange. I should not let you just give and not take something from me, that would be too unfair.”

She smiled despite the quiet tears. “Is it now?”

“Thank you so much,” the child continued spelling out his gratitude, just making her weaker at the moment.

“You go now, little one,” she squeezes his little hand. “Wait for your mom, okay? She will come back.”

In any instance that she doesn’t, I will take care of you.

The boy runs after that, leaving her to see him getting farther. Yeon looks at the scarf that she thought she needed, but since she has already cried, it feels warmer now. 

She sniffles and stands back up. “Let’s go,” she was even quite shy instructing her company because they just saw her cry.

In no time, she’s back to her friends. They all just waited for everyone to come back to their meeting place to respectfully say their goodbyes since most of the children were already tired and asleep. Since most of them were women who had their husbands clinging to them the whole reunion, they had no problem heading back home. As for her, she has one of Songrim’s most skillful mages as her guard; if she ever carried anything heavy, she has a servant beside her who has her hands free. Despite being able to go back just in time for dinner, she doesn’t know why she insisted on seeing them all leave one by one.

But to her own surprise, a stunning young man appeared in the midst of the crowd. Taller than many and as dashing as anyone could imagine.

“Omo, Yeon-ah! Is that your husband?” 

“Well someone’s winning tonight.”

Their retirement for the day was paused the moment Park Jin walked to her. Everyone was so stoked as he looked as if he sparkled under the bright, full moon.

“ Annyeonghaseyo ,” he bowed when he was already in front of all of them, but he kept his eyes straight to her.

Kim Yeon was just… speechless.

“What are you doing here?” She asks as if she’s some adolescent girl who’s still trying to hide her feelings for the boy she likes in front of her friends.

Jin unfolds a cream-colored scarf with glitter accents in front of her, gently shaking it before shamelessly putting it around her, carefully putting her hair out its loop and landing it on her back. Everyone’s time just slowed down at his sweet gesture and they were just there to swoon.

And she was just there to melt.

“It’s too cold out here, how could you have forgotten the scarf I gave you?” He says while he fixed the scarf from in front, making sure it doesn’t wrinkle atop her clothes. At this point, she doesn’t even have ears and eyes for anything else. Her irises kept following his face, reading his lips for she couldn't hear his voice clearly under the sound of her own heart racing like crazy.

Park Jin takes his time to stare at her all over, and then he focused on her face. Specifically her eyes. One second and his eyebrows were meeting halfway already, but he refused to say why until he had successfully gotten them out of the eyes of her friends.

“Thank you for taking care of my wife. Please, retire for the night. I will be taking care of her from here,” he takes her small frame in his hands. “We will get going. Have a nice night.”

And as they walked away, confusion was all over her.

Then again, they really have to behave like an affectionate couple in front of everyone else but them. But why must he follow her here?

No, she breathes, telling herself to shrug the thought off.

“Where is Uk?” That was her try to divert the feeling somewhere else.

“Asleep. Did you cry?” He asked after his answer. She’s beside him, and his hand is even around her shoulder, keeping her a little bit warmer. This makes her heart more confused than it already is. No one within her friend circle noticed that she cried just a few minutes before. But now that everything has already dried and puffed down, Jin noticed it.

Still, she chose to deny it. “No, it’s just… debris.” If she said that she really cried, it would trigger her heart more. He’d have more words to make it open and vulnerable and she doesn’t want that.

She doesn’t want that. You don’t want that, Kim Yeon.

“Wife,” he stops walking just to set that threatening voice off. She looks at him, more ferociously.

“What?” 

Unexpectedly, he smiles. “Nothing. It’s just that you’re beautiful… even when you cry.”

“I already told you that it’s–” she stops between her words when she realized the thought of what he just said.

“Okay then, you’re beautiful even when you get dust in your eyes.” 

Despite it squeezing her heart in a good way, it squeezes her heart in a worse way. “Did you drink too much?” Her question.

“What? I didn’t even drink at all.” 

“Really?” She mocks, “because I think I heard that from you when you were drunk and you thought I was, you know… her .”

At the mention of that, he quietly instructs their servants to get going and leave them two to where they stopped. But when they left, she realized something.

“I’m sorry, was that part of the plan? Did they need to hear you tell me that? I forgot,” she was genuinely apologizing for it. 

“Yeon,” his deep voice caught her off guard. His eyes… dark and looking deeply at her, she wanted to avoid them but the moment she caught a glimpse, it was glued there for good. “I mean it.”

She nods, takes her eyes off him. “Okay.”

Please, heart, easy there.

“And I meant it the first time.”

She looks again.

He puts his finger in between tendrils of her hair, hooking them behind her ear to see her face better. “I meant it every time.”

“Sure. Okay. Let’s uhm… Let’s get going–”

“Yeon,” he calls, just when she was steps away from freedom. She stops but she doesn’t turn around. “You’re still not ready to forgive me, I see.” 

Despite that, she still walks away.

Chapter Text

“Walking away is not always the answer, my princess.” Her father says. For a six-year-old, this is not the type of thing to discuss. She barely did anything unforgivable and even if she did, what can it be? She’s too young to think straight. She doesn’t know a lot of things just yet. But she had to. Because as if written in the book of life, her father’s candle had to be blown out so quickly after that.

It turns out that every important lesson he had discussed with her in an age way too young will not only be enough to last her a lifetime but more than any memory that could haunt her in times of need.

"Sure you can run from it a couple of times. When you're not ready yet to talk, or you think you still need to counsel yourself first. But thw whole point is that walking away is just for stalling. It doesn't really solve anything."

"If you don't settle it, no matter how dead it seems to you, it will keep finding you and chasing after you. So if you have a problem, and you're in your third try walking away from it, count your steps and rethink your decision. If you're finally going to face it or you'll just live your life running away."

She did both walking and running away that it does more justice to call it speeding away and making it clear that she does not want it. That she's yet again turning it down and there is not a chance in hell that she'd retaliate from that plan even if he dares chase after her. He has already tried his shot, and she's making it obvious how trying again wouldn't work. 

But if she is to speak the truth, she badly wanted to hear his heavy footsteps together with the sound of his buckle clanging against the cloth of his dress after her. She wanted Park Jin to go again, try again like she's doing. His persistence has always been there. But for tonight, when he finally accepted that she is far from giving him the forgiveness he's been working so hard to get, it has changed. 

She can already see the portal to Songrim, and despite the desperation to forget about this again and act normal tomorrow again, she stopped on her tracks.

Jin should be somewhere nearby. He didn't go after her but that doesn't mean he's not coming home, right? He could be waking at a slower pace, so she stopped there and kept waiting. 

To be honest, she's getting tired of this, too. Clearly, she's not and never will be a survivor of his lack of attention because as far as she's concerned, in the days that they were never the apples of the eyes of those they adored, they were very much willing to give that attention to each other. Every time she closes her eyes amidst the heartache that he constantly gives her, she sees their past and how he was the man who cracked intellectual jokes she barely understood just for an attempt to get her to smile. They would stroll around the market while he interrogated her all about her young lady. Even though he's been all about Do-hwa since before, it's not her issue. What she's heartbroken about is the fact that when they get their hearts broken over the slightest inconvenience regarding the people they hold a deep admiration for, it will be the two of them against the world once in a while. He'd tell her how Do-hwa rejected his gift and she'd tell him how she made an effort to collect acorns in the mountains only to come home to Jang Gang already eating some at Chwiseonru. 

They're the first to know what gets their heart broken, and the time spent memorizing the emotions that came after those moments is perhaps the reason why it's that easy for him to know if she had cried. But now that the tables have turned and he's the one who has got her heart wounded, she doesn't know where to run.

He was a young master and she was a servant, and they've remained civil yet maintained to never cross the line of their hierarchy level when it came to respect and formality even if their friendship was blooming more than what the sky and the land was supposed to have.

To her, it's always going to be "my lord". When she sees him in full rigor, he is her lord. His name just started to come out of her mouth when she began to have this hatred on him, thinking like she earned the right to talk to him like they were on the same level. But she's never going to choose that anyway.

She just can't figure out how to take him out of her life for good so that she can stop suffering. And it sucks because she doesn't really want that, that's why she can't.

This is past the third time that she's tried to dodge the arrow that keeps following her; and so she should do more than rethink whether to step forward once again until she is away. 

It's getting so cold now.

In her hand, she still had the scarf she bought from the lost little child earlier. And as she felt the chilly wind through the fabric of her sleeves, her feet started to move back to where she left him. She gets that he is a mage and he literally can make water freeze. The cold must not be bothering him. But it is bothering her, for she never let him feel cold at all.

Steps became wider and more desperate compared to when she tried to walk away. Now, she is running back, and it terrifies her to not be there just in time. This has happened too many times already and it’s made its mark in her heart to ache when she doesn’t see him exactly where he needs to be.

Unfortunately, when she got back, Park Jin was no longer there.

“No,” she bites her lip, gathering back her breath. She looked around, but it looked like it was the world that revolved around her for a while. “I know him. I must know where he is.” 

“Hey,” she sits beside him on that bench. When has it ever been there anyway? “Is everything okay?” She then pops a honey biscuit in her mouth and pushes the rest of it to his hand that rests on the wood. 

That was the first time he ever looked at her like his walls were crumbling down. That was when he let her in.

“He should be here…” Yeon krpt panting, trying to know her direction even when there was absolutely nothing to light up her path except for the moon. A meadow facing a heart-shaped pond that stands exactly between the berth of Daeho and the land of Songrim. When he gets his heart broken, that is where she finds him. Over the smallest inconvenience, he goes there and thinks alone. He loves its waters and the little ripples on them. He loves the scent of its grass. But she can bet that he wouldn’t have any of that tonight for the water freezes during these cold temperatures.

But even if he gets that or not, what matters to her is that in one little glimpse, something managed to pass on the side of her eyes. She’s sure she swore never to trust the stars that fell, but when she thought that it is a falling star, she quickly followed it with her whole body turning to see just what it was.

It fell on her shoulder.

A snowflake…

Looking over her shoulder, she saw something else. Something from afar moved like it was trying to get something from the sky: Park Jin looked up, his hand in the air trying to catch a snowflake in between his fingers.

Just then, snowballs the size of her thumb started descending from the same pitch-black sky.

Walking away is indeed not the answer she has been needing.

“ Juin-nim,” she softly calls as her steps got quicker towards him. For a moment, she was afraid he’d start to walk away, but he didn’t. The same dark eyes looked at her with the warmth they’ve been offering her since earlier. Seeing that he didn’t look away or avoid her in any way, she softened her approach, unfolding the blue scarf in her hands but never taking her watery eyes off of him anyway.

It was snowing. It’s all over his head and she can even see his breath come out of his mouth as smoke. Like he did to her, she hung the scarf over his nape and made a knot just over his collar. That was the moment she took his eyes off of him because she gets flustered and foolish when she’s this close to him.

“Why didn’t you come?” She sniffled. It was a real outcome of her forced-in cries but she’s trying to make it look like it’s just the cold. That’s ineffective though, she bets, because if he could read her eyes deeply enough to know whether she had cried, then he must know just as well if she’s faking her strength or not.

“You were obviously avoiding me,” he stayed as stiff as a tree in front of her. The stare that he’s giving her is palpable and it’s making her look away even more.

“That is not the point,” her voice is already strained but she made it sound decent enough for scolding. “You should’ve walked back home even if I was avoiding you. It’s so cold, what if you die out here because you froze?”

He smiles. "Well I'm afraid there are higher chances of me dying in your coldness than this winter."

She squeezes the end of his scarf, tugging it. "Stop it. let's head back home." 

Yeon was so ready to lead him back inside the gates, but it was him now who pulled her steady.

"No. This needs to be addressed,” his voice became so stern out of nowhere. “I will stop,” but it immediately softened at that the way her heart did.

Stop?

He stopped from holding her and then kept his distance as he continued to speak. “I will stop trying to make it look like things are okay,” Jin gulps, “I hurt you, and I understand that dealing with it as if nothing ever happened and expecting you to have already forgiven me when in reality, you still don’t, is not the right thing to do.”

Kim Yeon felt delicate upon his words, so much that it had her eyes irises shaking just like how her lips shook.

“The more I expect us to be fine, the more we get worse. I am apologizing now so I’d stop clinging to the signals you give me. One moment, I think we are okay, and the next second I try something, I figure out we’re really not. So let me tell you my sincere apologies again, Kim Yeon. I am sorry.” The leader of Songrim, her husband who everyone bows to, bowed to her. “I was so drunk and heartbroken that night and I called you by her name. For a brief moment, I saw her face on yours. I thought she was you–”

And then there was that again. A pent-up feeling of pain she feels like she might be dead for upon being reopened. She went back to him because she’s tired of running away. But she can’t do this right here.

“ Juin-nim , please, let’s just go home first–”

“But I meant it when I said that you were beautiful." Her eyes once again, where he poured all his sincerity into. "I was losing my sight in blur, but I managed to see you and you looked beautiful. I hope you believe me at least in that.”

At this point, she can't decide whether or not to cry. Her tears were taking over.

“I am sorry for not having addressed this sooner. I am sorry, too, that it had to go on like this and now we’re here. Everything that we do is being affected by that and even the way you treat me is different and now I accept that it is to be that way.”

She gets weak at his every word, feeling like she'd just shut him up. But honestly, this is the way it had to go.

“I am sorry, Yeon, I really am. I understand if your forgiveness doesn’t come as soon as I apologize. It is totally fine for me.” She felt his want to go closer but he couldn't. The suffering in his eyes, the pain, the honesty… It's all making her crumble down. “I just wanted to close this up so we can start anew.”

This is exactly what she needed, but any day it did occur, maybe even sooner than this, it would all feel the same.

Yes, he's right at the part where he said that her apology wouldn't just come around like magic. She's been forgiving all her life but that is because she chooses to take the toll for herself rather than making them feel like they are not worthy of being forgiven. It seems like Park Jin has accepted that fate, which makes it easier for her to decide that she'd forgive him. But then again, he just confessed how in his heart and his mind out of consciousness, it will always be his other girl. The one that got away.

To fall for him like this snow is never part of the plan. She can't say she's a blizzard to his land already, but if she wasn't supposed to pour over him violently then why does she now? Why does it hurt to know that it’s not going to be her even when at this point, she doesn’t plan on having eyes on anyone but him?

She married him knowing well that it gives him a freer pass to tear her heart into tiny little pieces.

But he’s still the one she swore to love.

As if taking the form of hail, the tears she’s been keeping appeared as an early blizzard that vigorously fell from the sky. Snow in bigger pieces, heavier forces, so much that they break upon hitting the ground. And yet they still felt light, even if the chill of the wind was too much to be outside at this hour.

Yeon was looking at the snow raining on and around them, but Jin was only ever looking at her.

“It’s falling now,” she hid her concern in authority, wanting to move her hand to his own when she said, “let’s go home.”

She should have expected her words not to come to an end since every time she tries to get away from him, it’s either that he chases after her or completely imprisons her in his arms.

But Park Jin didn’t pull her unready tonight. He didn’t force her to his shelter. He simply moved slowly, the way he always did. And the next thing she knew, her ear was next to his beating heart and there was not the littlest hint that he would ever let her go.

His hand was steady on the small of her back and around her waist. “You’re my warmth, you know? You have always been.” 

He inhaled through her like she was the air that he needed to breathe.

“Please let me hold you for a bit more.” So wretched and shaky his voice has become. Jin tightens his hold of her that she found it hard to breathe, and yet it is truthfully the one thing that she longed for. She was even inches away from holding him the way he did. She wanted so much to feel him more and cry on his shoulder the way it’s always been. But he said the next set of sentiments that stopped her world for good. “And after this, I promise you, I will not go anywhere you don’t want me to.”

He kept coiling around her like how tightly a ring could fit a finger. “I will do as you say, I swear. After this, I will give you the space you have been needing. So that you can fix yourself and forgive me when you are ready.” 

He doesn’t want to let go, and she doesn’t want to.

But as the season transitioned from one to another, maybe this is best. The cold will fall and the flowers will rise.

A clean break. And when he comes back to her, she will make sure she will not let herself feel the same pain.

I promise I won’t fall for you , she closes her eyes. This is for the best.

Chapter Text

The perfect escape to anything stressful has always been her little boy, Uk, who every day, grows into a handsome young lad that takes after his mother a lot. These days, he has been the apple of her eyes and they've been spending a lot of time together since after their encounter at the pond when it snowed, she's never seen Jin once. He's there, roaming around, being busy and all, but there'd been no proper conversation between them and it's becoming very seldom the times he gets to visit Uk or take him somewhere.

Of course this situation of theirs should not concern the child. They're in a process of healing and as he promised, he's been giving her the space she needed in order for him not to do anything again that'd upset her. This is a much needed reset, but what she doesn't get is why it still keeps on running after her like hell after she actually faced it. 

It's already done for. They've apologized, stated their stands clearly on the matter, and now they're just letting time do its thing to mend their hearts, especially hers. And yet she has never been more unsteady than now. Every minute, she keeps thinking about how he feels. He's not mad at her, right? His avoidance of her is not a result of another fight, instead, it is a result of not wanting to fight over and over. The blank eyes, the silent treatment… that is how he normally treats people. Park Jin doesn't fancy talking much. He's all about his goal and he's laser-focused on that, that's why it's hard for anyone to get him out of his thoughts. 

But what's his actual focus right here that he can't even bring himself to look at her and talk like he did when they weren't married and didn't have a son and didn't get themselves tangled in a situation that is confusing every nerve that they have?

" Maja," she puffs out a breath, "his goal is to get my acceptance of his apology. His goal is to slowly break down things so that they could be the way they were before. He's not mad or something—"

" Appa," suddenly, Uk cuts her off of her midnight thoughts.

The past months, her baby's been eliciting extremely loud noises from his stronger little lungs. He was five months old when his cries had different versions and if she only wasn't observant enough, she wouldn't have used that to her advantage. Uk has five types of cries. One is when he's hungry, two is when he itches anywhere, three is when he needs to burp, four is when he already needs a change of diapers, and five is when he's already worn-out and sleepy. When his tune gets unpredictable and he starts to use his limbs to kick and hit everywhere, that's already his tantrums. But slowly, he had developed a more convenient way of telling his needs without the involvement of tears or any disturbing noise. Vowel sounds escape his mouth as a replacement for his cries with varied meanings. Yeon doesn’t exactly know how she managed to understand and memorize those things, but she does.

However, the previous two days, Uk seems to be transitioning yet again to another communicative means. He’d usually just speak vowels, making them long and short but never saying two different syllables consecutively and with the involvement of any consonant sound. The first time he did, she thought it was just some sort of practice because he’d play with the palm of his hand and bump it softly on his open mouth, saying the sound repeatedly as if he was some sort of bell. It was their playtime, and she wasn’t quite concerned because he had just woken up by then, she fed him, and he was playing while his attendants heated some water for his bath right after. It sounded like “pa” being said over and over the first time she heard it. She even celebrated it because it’s the first time her small man said a consonant sound. She figured out later on, though, that he wasn’t simply playing with his new speaking ability but he was actually trying to mean something.

The next day at noon, Uk went severely paddy with his outburst. He cried like something hurt so much and he kept yelling “Appa”, which immediately made her worried that he might’ve been hurt anywhere since it sounded similar to how they say they are hurt as humans capable of actually saying some words to express themselves. Uk might’ve picked that up from the people surrounding him. But then when she stripped him of his clothes to look for a bruise or a bite or anything of the sort, he had nothing. He was perfectly fine. She feared that it might be another case of sorcery for him but he soon stopped from crying and throughout the day, had been perfectly alright.

“What could it be now, my love?” She picked him up from his crib, rocking her body to try and shush him. Yeon went back to the basics of crying once again, since he seldomly cried when he learned to make those sounds. The way he cried right now, during this unreasonable hour to actually be awake and not just awakened by her son, was as if he wanted something brought to him rather than something taken. It was most certainly no longer some type of itching or boo-boo that bothers him because it doesn’t sound like that. It was a calm cry. If she could only communicate how her heart felt was true, she would. Because it seems like Uk is pleading. Like he wants something, really, and he’s currently asking for it the nicest way he knows. 

After checking his skin for any sign of discomfort just for sure, she proceeded on handing him some toys—which didn’t work. She sung him a lullaby but that just made his bawling worse. Finally, she thought of giving him some milk.

That worked.

Uk held on to his bottle until his eyes were closed. And that was a worth-it night of trying to figure out what “Appa” meant. Finally, she had her answer.

Not until tomorrow came, that is.

In the pavilion that sat near Sejukwon is where she likes to spend her early mornings in. It’s the same place where she got a kiss stolen by Park Jin. It’s where Uk and Dang-gu used to play before Jin’s parents left with their grandchild days after the wedding, now Uk plays there alone.

Maybe, for her, it’s just a place full of heartwarming memories. And this is the problem. She badly wants to see Jin again and talk to him and be just like before, but she also promised herself that she will be responsible enough not to let herself fall for him. Yet every time she comes here, she gets caught in a situation where she just completely spaces out and later on finds that her fingers are on her lips, thinking of every kiss they had.

It’s really hard to get over that now, huh? But compared to before, she feels… empty. In all honesty, it’s not the first time she just loses her consciousness and goes back to the moment they almost completely devoured each other. It lingers. It’s that powerful. Like the parts he’s touched and kissed were given a life of their own enough to ache for him every now and then. But she didn’t like the feeling before. Her hate on him would continue to grow especially when she’s not in control enough to not let her reminiscing get to the part where he says Do-hwa’s name.

These days, it doesn’t even get there. It cuts off to the kisses and to the long stares and to the warmth of his hands all over her. 

All she knows is she’s missing him. And she’s missing him for all the wrong reasons she swore she’d not feel.

“Oh, it’s Park Jin’s wife,” it had to be another voice that puts her out of her thoughts for good once again. Wang Shin was standing under the elevated gazebo, staring up at her with hands crossed behind. Yeon quickly gets up from her chair, transferring Uk to her stronger shoulder as she breaks a smile and greets Jin’s friend.

“Good day, Wang Shin ahgassi, ” she bows, watching the woman and her companion walk up the stairs to her. Shin was smiling all the way, like she found something ridiculous about her greeting. 

“That is no way to call me, Park Yeon,” Shin shakes her head, and then looks behind her. “This girl. This is your ahgassi ,” she introduces Young Lady Buyeon, the leader of Jinyowon’s first born daughter. “Buyeon-ah, this is Jang Uk, Park Jin’s baby son.”

Yeon was surprised to see that the girl had a mask over her eyes. She was clearly blind, but walking to her and even smiling to Uk did not even become a problem. Aside from being astonished by the way she is so young and yet so able to familiarize with her environment despite her disability, she is also amazed by the young girl’s graceful attitude.

“ Annyeonghaseyo, Madam Yeon,” she took her time to bow and then looked up at her. “May I get to know him?” She was pertaining to Uk. Yeon did not hesitate. There were servants around them. And besides, it’s refreshing to see her Uk with another kid around.

When Buyeon and Uk were already at the other corner of the marquee, it was just her and Wang Shin, who, as far as she can remember, is the only existing Wang from the former royal family before the aristocratic Go family took over, making her a part of the Unanimous Assembly. Since it’s only her second time seeing her, she isn’t quite sure how to get along or to know her intentions. She was at their wedding, seated next to Jin Ho-gyeong, who was the same person that broke to her the question that almost cost Uk’s custody.

Although she is familiar with her deep voice, like she’s heard it somewhere.

Wang Shin doesn’t feel like an enemy. But what does she know? She better play it safe. 

“It’s nearly two months after you and Jin got married,” the woman opened the topic up. Now that was expected. “How is it going so far?”

Yeon came up with another lie now. “It’s going fantastic,” she even said it with a smile, just to be more convincing and to get away easily.

It’s actually far from fantastic , her insides were begging for her tongue to spit the truth out already. Their whole marriage has been winter like now. Cold and just… icy.

Shin did not follow up the question, but as her eyes studied her, Yeon felt like the lady could actually be having a hint of the truth: that her marriage with Jin is terrible. 

She hopes that she’s a well-enough actress for this.

“That’s great,” a dry remark, but relieving. “I'm pleased to hear that.”

It looks like the members of the Unanimous Assembly like things to be a one-question interrogation.

“Uhm, by the way, would you fancy some tea? I could prepare some–”

“There’s no need for that, thank you. You’re not a servant anymore, you know?” Shin looks at the view outside. “Besides, we’re not staying for long. I mean, it’s not sure, I don’t know how long that old man Heo Yeom needs to examine Ho-gyeong’s fat tummy.” 

Yeon quickly reacts, “Ho-gyeong as in Lady Jin Ho-gyeong of Jinyowon?”

“Yes.”

So they really are friends. No wonder why she feels like she will keep interviewing me about Jin and Uk.

“By the way, are you holding a celebration for Uk’s first birthday? If you are not aware, I am renowned for crafting a variety of objects, specifically the type that explodes.”

“Oh, well, I mean… Explosives?”

Shin laughs at her face. She was just so surprised and worried. “Don’t be so scared, Yeon, I was kidding. But are you? How old is Uk again?”

“He’s ten months old,” Yeon glanced at her boy briefly.

“Oh! It’s only two months away then. Do we have official colors so I can pick out clothes?”

She sighs. “Well… there’s actually no plan yet–”

“Are you kidding me?”

Shit.

Yeon nods, earning a scoff from the other woman.

“Are you and Jin talking? Because that man is a party junkie. He’s big on celebrations, like look at your wedding, it’s like he pushed the clouds to vomit a rainbow everywhere even when it’s winter,” disbelief was plain in her eyes, as well as a bad kind of surprise. Yeon feared that this would become a ground to bad parenting since this person she’s talking to is from the same assembly that doubted their credibility as Uk’s parents, but she is different, at least for now. “Don’t worry, I’ll scold him. I don’t care what his excuses might be, I will dagger him dead.”

Yeon’s heart stops for a second. “Please don’t.”

“Yeah, I’ll think about it,” Shin winks, and then goes to where Buyeon babysat Uk. She carries Uk and becomes the one who talks sweetly now. “How is the cute little man doing?” She kept shaking him, throwing him up, and attacking him with tickles, reminding Yeon of how Jin used to do that too.

And then all of a sudden, Uk used his words.

" Appa, " Uk tapped his small hand on Wang Shin's chest. He even laughed as his assaults became aggressive and his words gone over and over. 

Hearing it, Kim Yeon quickly called on a servant. "He must be hungry," she says as the child was being taken away. She lost track of time but it must be that he's hungry. After all, he's a developing human.

"Your child is gonna get fat if you keep sending him to the dining table every time he says that." Wang Shin says as she watches Uk's servants walk him farther.

"I'm sorry?" Asks Yeon.

" Appa doesn't mean food, Yeon, it means father for infants."

Father?

"Trust me, it's my niece's first word. She's quite a daddy's girl," she slowly faces Yeon.

Father? She repeats the question in her head, now with a feeling of being offended and jealous. "It must not be that… I've tried everything and feeding him worked—"

"He's an infant, Yeon, what do you expect? Anything you put in his mouth will make him shut up."

"Still, it's not…" It couldn't be. "Why would his first word be that?" She's fuming right now. 

"Excuse me," Suddenly, Buyeon comes into the discussion. She was permitted to it by Wang Shin, since her interruptions are most of the time, with a good reason. "I didn't mean to eavesdrop, but I have been with Park Jin-nim once and I have observed that his core of energy is almost identical to Wang Shin's," she briefly directs her face to Shin, who looked proud. 

Confused, Yeon kept listening. She doesn't exactly get the point that the girl was making. 

"Babies have the natural ability to see energy, since it is their only way of knowing whether one could be trusted. It is their survival instinct. But as soon as they are introduced to familiar people and are already having an awareness on who they should and shouldn't trust, it is being taken away," she explains. "However, I am divinely gifted with that ability and I still can see energy even though I am blind. Jang Uk must have sensed a familiarity within Wang Shin, mistaking her for his dad."

"Or in other words, I am right about him not being hungry and just trying to call on his dad." Wang Shin immediately supports the former statements.

That makes sense. Uk didn't want Jin Mu holding him the first time. That's a good thing, but admitting that would be admitting that Uk's first word is a call to Jin rather than a call to her. 

That is so unfair!

"You are such an eloquent child, my lady," that's what Yeon chose to say despite the loud banging in her chest. Like she said, this arrow still keeps on following her despite having it faced. Here she is not knowing that all along, during the time she spent silently missing him, Uk has been trying to call to him just as well. 

Her only fortune nosis despite the fact that she sulked, Shin didn't push that to her face and instead bragged about how Jin Buyeon got all her beauty, grace, and eloquence from her mother, Jin Ho-gyeong. Which had to come to an end when her husband, who to her knowledge was out at Gaema Village for a concern, stepped inside the marquee they were in.

Her heart was immediately thrilled.

" Seobangnim," she greets him, and then goes to him at the drop of a hat. He and Wang Shin might be friends but the girl is still potentially an undercover spy for the Unanimous Assembly.

Besides… she missed being lovey-dovey with him in public.

"Hi!" Yeon was aiming to land a swift kiss on his cheek, she even prepared to tiptoe for it but he stood there like a temple, not looking like he had any care for her at all.

"She knows about us, Yeon, no need to do that." That was his response. Cold as ice. And then he faced Wang Shin. Not even his own wife but Wang Shin. "You called?" He asks, to which Shin nods to with a small smile.

"You called?" She mocks. Kim Yeon has been killing the leaks that she's chopping so aggressively. "Is that what it takes for him to come home and have one proper conversation with me? An appointment, really? I'm his wife!"

"My lady…"

"And when it's another woman, he comes that quickly? How sure am I that when I call, he will even be bothered to listen to the messenger?" She slams the knife on the surface, hut she still held its handle.

"My lady," a scared, shaking kitchen servant called, "you ought not to be cooking, my lady…" he was unsure whether he has the courage to steal the knife that she held so securely in her right hand.

Yeon lets it go and then sighs. "You're right. Even if I cook, I bet he wouldn't even touch it."

Terrified, the cook agrees to her. 

"Servant Min," she calls in such a threatening voice paired with eyes that could kill. "You didn't hear a thing, okay?"

Servant Min gulps. "I didn't hear a thing, madam."

She storms out of that kitchen. It is unbeknownst to her own self that this is the first time she's acted like herself. That is her bickering, and it plays when she's still determined to have things twisted back to how they were. She's normally that talkative and expressive and unlike before she and Jin agreed to their distance, she was just silent and she kept it all to herself. But now, her not-caring-whoever-it-is-she-rants-shit-to personality is back in action once again. She didn't even mind what she said, she just wanted to let it out. No matter how jealous she sounded.

Then again, what is she so mad about? Yes. That he's friends with that woman and she's currently… she doesn't even know what she's called. She's his wife, but a nobody when it's just fhe two of them in the room. And it sucks. It upsets her so much.

Luckily for her, she has his kryptonite. And it is actually up to her to get things back to normal. It's her forgiveness that he seeks, she will give it to him now if that's what it takes for him to bat an eye on her because this is just terrible. She can't function properly.

Can't live with him, can't live without him.

It's perfect timing how Uk just said his first word…

Chapter Text

“I called?” Wang Shin quickly laughs at him as soon as Yeon, Bu-yeon, and the servants were out of the frame. She solemnly shuts herself up and then starts the conversation on a more sarcastic note. “You called, Park Jin?” Still making fun of his excuse. He was in fact the one who called her here, but that wasn’t how he wanted to make it seem.

“It’s not like we can just start talking while she is here,” he was defensive.

“Oh, so you didn’t want her to know that it was, as a matter of fact, you who wanted to have a conversation with me.”

The dead air he gave her was the yes that she wanted. After all, Shin never knew him to be the type to call an outsider for just a simple talk over something he could resolve on his own. He is the leader of Songrim, and it is so not him to ask others for advice let alone require their presence unless it is his most vulnerable and hopeless. And they haven’t seen each other in years after parting ways, succeeding their mastery of Chisu because he never demanded her help. He was capable enough for himself until he had a wife, who is clearly his problem.

“You don’t think you didn’t offend her when you declined her greeting?” She points out. “That was way more disheartening than knowing you summoned me yourself.”

Weakly, he waivers forfeit. “Enough of that, please, that’s not what I called you for.”

“Then what is it?”

“Do you have anything I could help with?” He asks, inconclusive, and so earning a scrunch in between her eyes.

“What do you mean?”

“I’ve been scouring the fortress corner by corner for more than a week now and I think I have resolved all issues. If new ones come, they’ll not come soon.”

That was said in a tone of voice implying that he’s dying without the action. It’s true that he’s been nimbly straightening out everything that’s been happening all around Daeho, to the extent that his mages are useless, even Sang Ho, his right hand. He’s been doing everything from the biggest speculations of sorcery down to the smallest duty of a household that may need his help. He’s been trying to pick up hobbies such as cooking so he could spend his time apart from training mages and eradicating the land of any mischief, but it doesn’t look like he’s doing those duties justice. He has already read every book available at Jeonjingak’s library and he’s inches close to learning medicine if only Heo Yeom wouldn’t scold him for spending more time testing out something new instead of teaching his son how to walk or something. 

Shin is just one of the few mysteries of Daeho. She is a traveller and an original royal who has bravely kept her surname despite the threat of clearing the land of anyone from her family after the king that represented their line committed a sin that almost caused a war. If anything, she must be the go-to person for mystery. She could be another target for murder because after all, her existence is both a crime and a question.

But she is just as much as a known troublemaker.

At his pause, she did her best to offer a solution despite not fully understanding. “Do you want me to cause a problem or something?”

“No. But do you have a suspicion of anything? Cheonbugwan? Or just anything off at all? Are you currently acquainted with a drama that I do not know about?” He was desperate.

And she was quick-witted. “Oh, no,” the look of pity she gave him matched the way she said that phrase. “She’s definitely your problem.”

And he’d deny it again.

“She has nothing to do with–”

“--your obsession with clearing the ground of dirt, of course. Because you don’t want to find a decent reason to leave this place and avoid her. Because you have got no problem with looking her straight in the eye and holding her like a man would. Yes, you definitely convince me.” Shin licks her lips after she continued the words for him. Her friend inched a bit closer and tapped his back. “Jin, instead of trying to find a dilemma to resolve, why don't you try to clean up the mess that's right in front of you and not run away from it, finding something else to put your frustrations on? If you're having a quarrel with your wife, face it. Getting away doesn't do you any good."

He was wordless, still thinking of a lie to cover up anything but he should give up now, doesn’t he? Shin stands by what she believes and what she believes is always true,

"If you're not aware, it's the middle of winter. It's always freezing outside, even the crocodiles are in hibernation and you insist on being restless?” The last note on that was threatening. “Why don't you shut up, stay in your abode, be a good husband, and make up with your wife? Make yourself useful and help her fight off the cold, dumbass. For sure she'll forgive you."

And that suggestion of hers made him burst out with the truth. "She denied me her bed."

Shin did not react so much, but it is rare to see her eyes get bigger. "What's that now?"

"We have never slept together even once,” he puffs a breath that made its way out as fog because of the temperature.

"Yeah, I don't follow.” She blew a breath like he did before the clarification. "You've never consummated?"

He faces her. "Do you understand now why I am asking you for a reason to stay out?"

His friend wanted to laugh and it was obvious. Things like this are ridiculous for her, but she was too blown away to react that way and she understands now that she called him to resolve an actual problem and not laugh at the situation. She scoffs, "okay, so you're having issues… As a man."

A nod from him as he looked afar.

"Because you never got to spend a single night with her,” she adds. And as much as it humiliates him, there is no turning back. The only thing he can do to save himself from more embarrassment is not say anything verbally, so he nods.

"So what the hell do you feel? Wow, I've never met a celibate married man before." There she was, curious.

"I am having trouble sleeping,” he replies and it was so softly spoken that anyone outside their radius could never hear a thing. It was a private discussion after all. "Every time I try to squeeze my eyes shut at night, she's all I ever see." His admission only renders him weaker. Reminiscing everything that’s been happening all at once makes him question how he’d survive when all it’s ever been is a feeling. It’s as bad as when it happens, but at least his distraction is far out of reach.

Jin gulps before telling another miserable fact. "Whenever she's near, I could only ever think of running to her and bringing her somewhere where there's just us two and I could do what I please. And that is totally wrong and disrespectful." He couldn’t close his eyes or else the sensation would win him over.

He couldn’t see Shin because he didn’t look at her while confessing, but he can feel how genuinely open she is to his honesty, even giving side penitentiaries. "That must suck."

"I'm having problems with eating, and it's not like I haven't been having it for a long time—"

"Yeah, because you're a picky eater—"

"—but it has gotten worse, I'm afraid. I am going crazy. I envision her at the table in front of me and the rest follows and I just can't…" he was not able to push through with the thought anymore. "The only time I'm ever able to get my mind off of her is when I have things to stress about and when I've spent my whole day worn-out so there's no room for her to pester me at bedtime because I quickly fall asleep out of fatigue."

Anyone with an open mind who’d listen to his story will feel his difficulty. In fact, he feels bad for himself. His old self, at least, because Park Jin from at least two years ago has never had this problem. It’s like he’s just starting to grow up while shrinking backwards at the same time.

A brief moment of silence to know that she had indeed listened was what his friend gave him before sayin, "I am so… sympathetic with you right now." She was continuously nodding, gently tapping his back. "I was gonna ask, how the hell could that be happening to you when you've never slept with anyone in your life? But then I remember how pretty and provocative your wife looks. Damn,” Shin couldn’t help but bite her lip while making a hissing sound.

She, too, can’t deny how beautiful Yeon looks. And she hasn’t even seen her half bare. She’s not seeing her every day with that vision and the knowledge that she is her wife. And that it is legal to take her to bed. And that it is fulfilling to hold her asleep for hours.

"Must feel like death to lay in the cold knowing that she is yours." Another comment coming from her, which he quickly countered.

"That's the problem, Shin," he presses his lips together, "she is not mine."

It was an anticipated reply. "Oh, there we go. Fess up."

This is where the calling-her-at-such-an-unexpected-time-for-an-unknown-reason-at-an-unreasonable-winter starts to make sense.

"There's a lot that's happened between us since Jang Uk's birth. And until now, she still couldn't grasp the fact that we are married after everything that has happened."

A lot and everything to him means that thing and everything else that followed for that sole reason. But what Wang Shin understands is as simple as that they’re forced into a relationship that they did not have a choice on.

"So, like, she doesn't have feelings for you," and despite her cluelessness, she was still able to declare the truth. It was not a question, she just knows.

And it felt like a sharp dagger through his chest.

"She didn't sleep with you and still doesn't because she's not in love with you."

Jin could hear his heart shatter.

"I mean, I am not taking sides here. Because obviously, you are respecting her decision and I take pride in you not forcing her to do shit although that's what men should actually do." She says in a matter-of-factly voice, "and she's not in any predicament to oblige to that kind of relationship if she is not ready to. After all, that is her body, may the two of you be married or not,” she scoffs shortly. “She is definitely not yours."

"I know." It was his only defense to protect his already writhing, dying heart. Knowing that he is not hers is torture enough, what more of it being reiterated?

But Shin immediately offered him comfort from what she just discussed. "Maybe it's just really the cold, Jin. Perhaps it's what causes the often… you know, even if it's not in the morning." And an idea following that. "But as I always say, if you are unhappy, I can fix that."

Master Heo always hits him in the head because he has a hard time getting illogical things. "Dare I ask what that means in this situation?"

"Well I know a brothel or two—"

“No.”

As soon as he had a glimpse of that suggestion of hers, he was quick to turn it down. “If you are implying that I sleep with another woman to satiate my needs then I do not need it. I am married.”

“And your marriage is causing you hell.”

“I will gladly suffer as long as it’s my marriage that causes it.”

“No shit, you’re trying to run away,” she pinpoints calmly and then stops for a bit, glances at him. “Are you sure you don’t want the courtesa–”

“No.” Again. This time, sterner.

“Alright,” she admits defeat. “That’s as far as I go. Unless you’d like my help with–”

“With something I could busy myself with, right?” His eyes dilated with hope.

She stares at him, offended by the desperate interruption. “Had you let me finish, I would’ve asked you if you need my help with getting back with your wife since you’re so decided on turning down my brothel offer.”

“How can you help me with–”

“Fine, I do have something for you,” she rolls her eyes.

Finally. “What is it?”

“Ho-gyeongie will need a companion at the new queen’s first banquet.”

He stopped absorbing things when he heard how sweet that name came about from her mouth, so much that he repeated it in question. “Ho-gyeongie?”

“I meant Jin Ho-gyeong,” a quick pick-up from her. “As I was saying, she will need a companion at the banquet and I couldn’t come because then they’d quarrel about who’s rightfully queen. And she’d hate my presence there. I was told that she spilled boiling water on her cousin’s face because the girl was more beautiful.”

It was quite the intriguing turn. “She did?”

“Yes, and aside from my face, she has a lot more to try to get rid of me for. So I’m not going. Now, since you’re so desperate to take the time off away from your wife, you are going to escort her,” she was utterly serious and he knows. It’s scaring him.

“Since when was she your business?” His initial query.

“Since none of your business.”

“Are you telling me to babysit some other man’s wife?”

“Her husband is not available and I am also not. It’s on you.”

“What— Can she just not attend or send someone else?”

She looks at him, full of disgust. “One, it is her duty, being the only grown woman of the Jin family. Two, she has the face of a deity that her useless, powerless husband could not protect from Seo Ha-sun. I am confident enough with her magic but she doesn’t use weapons. You’re the one to go.”

Jin was still and more dumbfounded now. “Where is her husband anyway?” Why must I fulfill that persona for her?  

He didn’t think enough of what she would say, but it was surely enthralling.

“I cursed him,” she confesses like it wasn’t even a secret that should strictly be kept from the person that he is. Shin stands still beside him, as calm as she ever was. “Don’t worry, he’s not dead. And you do know that I don’t move unless it’s for a reason. But go ahead, if you would fancy dealing with me and my use of mild sorcery, I’d tie my hands myself,” she offers him a small smile. “It’s either that or you’ll take the banquet. Besides, you’ll eventually be invited there. Invitations for women of the families come a bit earlier but I’m sure yours is on the way, Leader Park,” she laughed at the mention of his title.

“What’s it gonna be?” Her final question. 

He took his time weighing it, he’s still not over the fact that she just used sorcery on someone’s husband for a reason he doesn’t know about. But he eventually came to the final question for a decision.

“Wouldn’t my wife be invited?”

Because if they send invitations to Yeon, he’s going to be there. She could arrive alone because of her obvious hatred for him but at least he can watch over her from a distance and make sure she is safe. In any case, however, that she wasn’t sent one, he’d still be at the banquet because he’s trying to avoid her for his own sanity.

Truly, what’s it gonna be?

“Well, that’s up to you,” Shin gave him that answer that came with possibilities. “Invitations are directed to the heads of the families. In this case, it’s you. You currently lead the Park family, if there is one . But if you’d fancy taking Yeon there with the risk of her face getting bruised or burnt or poured hot oil on is totally on you,” she shrugs, “I mean, I’m not saying that she can’t defend her human self–”

“Fine. I won’t be taking her,” he comes to that decision. It’s better for her to stay home. He can’t risk that. 

“But are you taking my offer?” 

He swallows, “I am.”

“Perfect.” She smiles. “I promise, Jin, everything will be fine. I’ll find you a better cure for the carnality and I promise it wouldn’t involve gisaengs . Just make sure you’ll be good to the pregnant woman, alright?”

“When is the banquet happening?”

“Two nights from now.” She starts picking up her sword, preparing to leave. “You may expect your invite this afternoon or tomorrow morning.”

And she left then. But she also left him something to think about those two nights.

“As for you, when you have successfully carried out what I asked, everything else will be better the moment you come back.”