Chapter 35 #2
She blinked up at him, and when he shared what he had learned, she felt only compassion for what he must have endured and must still be enduring.
She took a tiny step forward, closer to him, and he flinched as though in surprise.
“Well, nauri,” she said, and mustered the courage to ask, “do you still want me?”
Something leapt in his gaze. “Yes. More than life itself.”
“Then I must beg your forgiveness for not recognizing you sooner,” she barely managed to say as her throat tightened with emotions, nose tingling, eyes growing damp. “You are, to me as well, the kind of soul one finds only once in a lifetime, and travels the next thousand searching for again—”
He closed the space between them, and her heart raced like a restless horse set loose across the overflowing grassland, pounding with painful intensity. His hand reached out for hers, running his thumb across her knuckles.
“Someone might see,” she gasped, even as she chose to remain still, her pulse skipping at the sensation of his hand, which was much rougher than she’d imagined, so much larger than her own. “We will be most scandalously compromised.”
“Then I might have to marry you, Mistress Haewon.”
The heat that burned her cheeks flared to the tips of her toes. “You mustn’t make such jests.”
“It is no jest,” he whispered. “Haewon-ah. Shin Haewon. I wish you could see my heart. I wish you could see how I feel for you.”
Her breath caught as he drew her close. He was looking at her, she at him, and there were stern etiquettes to abide by, some wise wisdom like Save the tryst for darkness.
But he was looking at her, and she could think of little else, and he seemed to forget everything, everything melting in the warmth of their proximity.
The sensation of his fingers, the rough pad of his thumb drawing circles against her inner wrist.
“You have nothing to prove,” Haewon said, so quietly he had to lean forward. Her breath against his cheek, the red flush crawling up along his neck. “For my heart is already yours.”
“Mine?” he whispered.
“Yes.”
His head turned, just the slightest bit, and it was all that was needed for his lips to brush her jaw.
He hesitated for the barest moment before his lips brushed against hers in a gentle and undemanding kiss.
It was utterly scandalous, but his lips were against hers, and it was all she could think of, her heart racing with a wild thrill she’d never before experienced, a mixture of joy and anticipation that beat too fast.
“Agasshi?”
Haewon startled free from Lord Yu’s embrace, then swept a glance around. It was only them in the alleyway, and His Lordship appeared as flushed and disoriented as she felt. It was as though they had been shaken awake from a reverie.
“Agasshi!” Boram called again from the other side. “I purchased a few rice cakes for us both! Where are you?”
Haewon touched her lips. It was improper to even associate with a man, to even permit him a glance at her full face, yet here they were, kissing in public, in broad daylight. The shock of the moment continued to thrum in her veins.
“May I—” He faltered. “May I walk you home?”
“Yes,” she said breathlessly, her face growing even hotter. “I would like that very much.”
When they stepped out of the alley, Maid Boram gawked, her eyes growing as round as saucers.
She did not say a word, though. Her shocked silence bore into Haewon’s back as she walked alongside Lord Yu.
They walked with enough distance between them that, to any onlooker, it would seem no more than a lone gentleman leading his horse ahead, and a mistress and her maid scurrying home.
No passersby would notice the impropriety as Haewon, at last giving into temptation, peeked at Yu Seojun from under her veil.
He was watching her, too. She bit her smile and looked away, an uneasy joy swelling in her heart.
A joy that felt almost too much.
She inhaled a deep breath, her chest expanding with the scent of spring, then another as she took in the familiar scenery around her.
Over the many years, she had walked this path alone during her early-morning strolls.
She had watched the grove of trees changing with the seasons.
The branches snow-dusted in winter, clouded with blossoms in spring, lush green in summer, shivering bare in autumn.
Then the winter would return. She had daydreamed during these walks, imagining herself carving out her own destiny, and walking that off-course path alone, for who else would follow?
Now it occurred to her she might have gained a companion on this journey, to appreciate with her the shifting landscapes of life and its changing seasons—together.
“We’re arrived,” Boram declared, wiping at her perspiring brow. “We had better hurry inside, agasshi, before you are seen with—with—” She cleared her throat, flicking a nervous glance about.
Haewon guarded her face from displaying her disappointment.
She was wishing she had lived farther away, to have more time to spend with Seojun, when she felt him draw near.
His hand touched the side of her jangot cloak, slipped under; his knuckles grazed the length of her bare wrist. A shiver ran down her spine.
“Your m-mother is likely worried sick about you, a-agasshi,” Boram stammered, her face turning bright pink as she kept her stare trained ahead. “We should leave; that would be wise—”
“No, Boram-ah,” Haewon said, the entirety of her attention centered on his hands, which were still caressing her. “Mother is too preoccupied with Jade’s wedding to notice my absence.”
“Well, you cannot—” Boram tried to look everywhere but downward at their entangled fingers. “What if you are seen?”
As though Boram’s anxiety had summoned them, a gang of ajummas was stalking down the road, pots on their heads as they gossiped in boisterous voices.
“Agasshi!” Boram cried in a harsh whisper.
Haewon bit her lower lip. “I should go.” She at last moved to follow Boram, but Seojun’s hand slid around her wrist in a gentle grasp. She could have easily pulled away, but she didn’t want to.
“Stay,” he whispered. “Don’t leave me just yet.”
“Oh, heavens, I vow my hair will turn gray soon,” Boram squealed. Then she wiped her brow again and shot Lord Yu the stern, measuring look of a protective matron. “Take good care of her, nauri. I’ll keep an eye out for you both. And—and I’ll take those books.”
After tethering his horse, Seojun took Haewon and led her down a path, deep into the pine forest where shadows crawled up along the trunks, only the treetop peaks still drenched in light. The sky had deepened into a quiet purple, flocks of birds now singing their dusk chorus.
When at last she faced him, Haewon found herself staring up into a pair of eyes fixed intently upon her.
She leaned against a tree trunk as he stepped closer.
A nervousness fluttered awake as she watched his gaze drop to her lips, his eyes darkening, or perhaps it was the fading light.
She had never experienced this before; it was all so new.
“I’ve been dying to know, nauri. There are so many rumors about what happened between you and the king,” she rambled, to ward off the building sense of vulnerability. “But I’m not sure what is true.”
“I wrote the apology letter.”
She winced. “You apologized for writing?”
A ghost of a smile played at the corners of his lips. “I wrote a most long-winded letter, in which I apologized for being unable to apologize, that my sin was too grave for me to even consider apologizing, but that I do apologize for causing His Majesty trouble.”
She stifled a laugh. “And how did the king respond?”
He drew her veil back slightly, as though wanting a clearer look at her face. “The king sounded both irritated and amused with me. In the end, my father is a Noron faction leader. His Majesty is unable to punish me too severely, but will keep a tight rein on me nevertheless.”
She frowned. Would this truly be the end of Black Lotus?
“It is to be expected. I am to enter the Royal Academy, so His Majesty wishes to ensure that my essays do not imitate the free-spirited novel writing style.”
“All this must agitate you so…”
“I’m unsure how I feel,” he whispered. “In truth, I can think of little else right now but you.”
“Oh.” Her pulse quickened as he leaned in. An unfamiliar, molten sensation curled at the pit of her stomach as his nose grazed the crook of her neck, trailed down along her jaw, then his lips brushed hers in soft and polite kisses.
She hoped he wouldn’t stop.
Slowly, the nervousness drifted away. She melted into his embrace that felt so familiar, so safe, as though his arms had held her just so, many lifetimes ago.
It was then that a new boldness roused in her.
She slipped her arms around his neck, and she touched him, exploring the expanse of his back, tracing the slopes of his taut muscles.
Her hands drifted along his high, stiff collar, caressed the back of his bare neck.
His skin was hot to the touch, damp with a thin sheen of sweat from growing exertion, as though he were under immense restraint.
She had no idea what possessed her then, but as he kissed her, she took a little nip at his lower lip.
And the moment she did, Yu Seojun unraveled right before her.
A helpless sound escaped him. This time, he pulled her in closer, so close that she felt melded to him.
His mouth pressed hard, burning against hers, coaxing her lips apart and kissing her in a way she never imagined possible of a gentleman like him: insistent, intoxicating, and urgent.
Desire pooled and consumed all sense of time.
It couldn’t have been more than a few minutes, but her hands and toes had grown cold in the deepening chill.
And when they finally broke away, chests expanding as they both tried to catch their breath, Haewon blinked and realized they had been kissing for perhaps too long.
“I didn’t realize the time,” Seojun said, appearing flustered as he studied the sky. “You—” His voice wavered. Clearing his throat, he tried again. “You should return home before night falls.”
Haewon could not will herself to leave. She wanted to stay.
Just a moment longer. To stay long enough to unfold and read his mind as she had his letters, to hear his thoughts unconfined by the space of a page or the restraints put in place by their pseudonyms. He was hers now.
Her gentleman. And she had waited too long, grown too curious, to let him go without asking the many questions she had—particularly the one that had preoccupied her for the past few days.
“I really must know something before you leave,” she said, and almost of its own accord, her hand grasped the corner of his sleeve. “Will you keep writing novels?”
“Novels…” he murmured. “In truth, I’ve forgotten why I began writing them in the first place.”
“Is that so? Well, this I can tell you. I still remember how I felt when I first read your work. I recall it most vividly.”
His gaze steadied on her, a raw and vulnerable look opening across his expression. “And what did you feel?”
Tilting her head, she smiled as the memory returned, a surge of happiness that flooded the horizon of her soul.
“It was as if I’d fallen into a trance,” she began as she strolled over to a nearby pavilion.
“Sitting in front of a rice bowl, I forgot to eat; standing in front of the basin, I forgot to wash my face. I remember thinking, Where am I? Is this my room? As far as I was concerned then, I was journeying through Mount Jiri, standing before the Buril waterfall!”
He chuckled as he sat on the raised pavilion floor, right next to her. “Is that so? I’m not sure that you’d be so eager for me to write if you knew the cost. If I am caught again, I would most likely end up isolated from high positions.”
“And why should I care? But do you wish to be in power?”
“It is what my father wishes of me.”
“But does Yu Seojun wish it?”
“Not particularly.” He leaned back, his arms propped behind him. “What I’ve always dreamed of is a quiet life, perhaps a government post somewhere far from the capital, somewhere scenic.”
“Somewhere that the author Lee Junghwan would recommend in Taekriji?”
“Precisely.”
“And you would write, then?”
“Perhaps one day. But today—there is such a weight in my heart, a stifling pall that will not leave. The mere thought of writing suffocates me now.”
For a moment, his gaze grew distant, his thoughts lost in a place that not even she could reach.
Then he turned to her. “And you, Shin Haewon?” He reached and took her hand, carefully studying the light blue veins threading across the top of it, examining with keen interest the writing calluses marking her fingers. “Will you continue to transcribe?”
“Would you permit me?”
His brows drew together. “You would stop, if I asked it of you?”
“No secret remains a secret. I wouldn’t wish to become a disgrace to your family…” she admitted. “But if I am honest, I would simply be more cunning and find ways, as I always do.”
A smile of relief broke across his face.
“Imja,” he addressed her, an endearment that sent a ripple through her soul.
“I would much rather never call you mine, and live life without you, wandering without a home forever, than to bind you to a life you were not meant for. You are, and will always be, the mistress of your own life.”
“The mistress of my own life,” she repeated softly.
A quiet settled between them. She had imagined, while walking here, how it might feel to be promised Myeongwoldang, to be mistress of such a great giwajip.
But this was something far more precious to her.
To find someone who held her dream, her deepest longings, with as much gentle kindness as though it were his own.
“It is late now. I don’t wish to worry your parents,” he whispered, pausing to press another slow, lingering kiss upon her lips. “I’ll escort you home.”
Fingers entangled, they strolled down the path, and Haewon took in the sight around her.
The sun hovered on the horizon, the forest now a silhouette of shadows.
The stream out in the clearing shimmered pink with the reflection of floating clouds.
The cacophony of birds, the spring wind and the rustling greenery, seemed to crescendo in a beautiful melody as she walked together with him.
Her heart was full, and she found herself unable to stop smiling.
Truly, she wished to write this moment into a book and live inside it forever.