Chapter 50: The Beginning of The End.
"I saw you. I saw you when you looked at me with warmth in your eyes and yet I felt as though falling for your eyes would be the biggest mistake of my life. I-I want to come clean, I want to tell you how I've been misled b-but I'm afraid you'll hurt me. What scares me the most about you is your paramount rage. The manner with which you screech your guts out, causing every mirror to shatter… I-I've tried being understanding for you, Yun Ki, but yo-you've only ever showed me the side of you that scares me. I still get flashbacks of the time you tried to force yourself into me, against my will and having to feel paralysed, under a heavy weight atop my chest, terrifies me..The truth is, you've never looked into me, as an equal..You've always placed yourself above me. I-I don't want you to treat me like a Queen either, I want to be your wife, your equal.." Soojin cries, the muscles in her abdomen clenching with every words she spits to the man who's grasped onto her thighs, as though he's afraid that she'll run away, the way she always does.
The way everyone does.
Yun Ki can't get himself to erase the thoughts of his evil twin laying his hands on someone he'd married.
Someone who's fate was sealed with his.
But the again, Yong Sun always wanted whatever Yun Ki had set his eyes on.
Yet, the images of Soojin writhing under the man, who looks like him yet isn't him, drives him ballistic.
But his heart hurts.
He isn't any better, is he?
He's not a saint, he's done things he's ashamed of, he's stabbed those who've hurt him in their backs, he's bore no loyalty to Soojin.
He's no better than she is and yet, he feels he's better than her.
All because he knows that if he were the old ill-tempered beast, he would've split her in half without a care in the world but here she is, overflowing like a cup full of water yet one that doesn't quench your thirst.
He can't go soft, not now, not after she jumped into his arms and claimed his lips like they were her lover's.
Yet, he knows he has a decision to take.
What could he do?
Make her a slave or perhaps, a prisoner?
What good would that do?
Exile had made him a stone-hearted man fuelled by greed and had filled his heart and mind with one word, revenge.
He couldn't bear to see another life being played with and undergoing the damage he'd been through.
His youth was spent scribbling down the walls of the dainty wet wells, he was forced to call his home.
The 4 walls were his bedroom, recreation and washroom.
There were days he lived breathing in his own urine and excreta.
He rustled against the doors when it got cold sleeping on the tiles, ones that dug into his back and left him with minor scoliosis.
He cursed at himself, hell, he'd even tried to slit his wrists with the shattered pieces of the mirror he'd hurled a rock into.
He couldn't inflict that on Soojin, it wouldn't sit right on his conscience.
Knowing he's turned Soojin into someone loathing as him.
He was still bothered by how he'd turned Ryunjin.
He hated himself for whatever he had turned Ryunjin into, all when she'd been nothing but nice to him.
He's seated over Soojin's thigh, watching her chest heave erratically and somehow, watching her in pain, tugs at the strings of his own heart.
Why was love and betrayal so painful? He thought to himself.
A girl he knew nothing about and yet had watched prancing around the Capitol marketplace, with her mother, one fine evening.
Yun Ki didn't think he'd be alright without having her in his clutches.
What had started as an obsession to ruin her purity had transcended to feeling pain watching her eyes fill with tears.
He was hurting, if she was.
"I-I don't know what to say to you..I've been trampled on, wrecked, far too many times for my own good. I'm no saint. I've had my own shares of mistakes..However, the mental image of him t-touching you, like you belong to him, burdens my soul..It makes me feel as though he's ruined you, spilled ink all over your body.." Yun Ki vocalises, climbing off of Soojin.
He watches her laying flat against the wet grass, staring at the stars.
"W-We messed up, didn't we?" She asks.
Yun Ki hates how he's still in love with her, even if she's coated and wrapped in the arms of the only man he's ever hated to death.
He grabs her by the arm, pulling her up, in a sitting position.
"Look at me.." He says, grabbing her chin, making her face him.
The visual is gruesome.
His face is coated in blood and specks of flesh dislodged from his scar.
She's caused this.
"I-I wish to beg for your forgiveness.." She mumbles, looking down.
"I-I've fallen from my own eyes. If you wish to decapitate me, I-I would be understanding of it..I've committed a sin. Craving the love of a man, who was a Tiger dressed as a Lamb, has caused this. What I don't understand is why I was used?" She asks, herself.
Yun Ki lets out a sigh.
"I'm not going to kill you, Soojin and it's not because I can't, it's because I couldn't bear to have another death pulling down my soul. I-I've been made to do things before, things that would gouge your intestines out in disgust. Things an 14 year old child had been made to do, out of pressure. I understand redemption, more than anyone. As I said, I'm no saint and neither are you. You were targeted because you belonged to me." Yun Ki speaks, hand going to tuck a strand behind her ear and yet, holds back.
He sees his brother in her eyes, staring back at him and smirking.
"H-He's not a nice man, Soojin and not many know that. Even uttering his name in The Palace is prohibited. It's because he's been nothing more than a leech to my Late Father. He's beseeched the honour of the Kingdom. I-I can't defend myself because I haven't been any wiser, when handed the reigns and yet, I know I'm better. I know I'm not the devil, that he is. I'm not better yet I'm not the worst." He mutters, picking at the weed.
Then, he remembers.
The Chief Guard.
The man who's been in on this for ages.
His blood boils as he stands up in rage, discarding the satchel he was carrying.
He's chased after by Soojin.
"Yun Ki-ah!" She screams, running after him, barefoot.
Yun Ki jumps the fence, watching Chief Hong squat, hiding as he'd been instructed.
"Master! What happened to your face?" He cries, inspecting Yun Ki's bloodshot face.
Yun Ki screams at his Chief.
"Where the hell is that bastard?!"
His voice booms amidst the dead of the night and the Chief scrambles for words.
"Y-You're Majesty, he-he said he felt sick s-so he's next to our horses, resting..Why?" The man asks, staring at Soojin, hiding behind Yun Ki.
"Ssibal.." He cries, running back to the spot they'd tied their horses.
His heart is thumping and he knows that when it rains, it pours.
He reaches the spot to find the Chief Guard's horse missing.
Of course, he thinks, the scoundrel would've gone back to his master.
"Master!" Chief Hong huffs beside him, hands on his hip.
Yun Ki grasps his collar.
"How could you let him leave?!" He wails, holding the aged man with a tight grip over his neck.
"M-Majesty, he-he had turned pale..I though he was coming down with something.." Chief Hong gasps, holding onto his neck, coughing as soon as Yun Ki leaves him.
"Y-Yun Ki, he's gone to Bohoja, I'm sure of it!" Soojin voices.
Yun Ki stares at her, teeth birthing at the mention of the word 'Bohoja'.
He stares her down, standing next to Chief Hong, in a flimsy silk night gown, the skin of her chest glistening under the street light and he huffs, undoing the strings of the over-jacket he had on, at once.
Discarding his brown Magoja(outer jacket), he moves towards Soojin, prying her arms into it, tightening the lace over her torso, watching her drown in the oversized clothing.
She looks at him, with eyes beaming in confusion.
"I-I, you looked cold." He answers, scratching the nape of his neck, fingers coating in coal.
Chief Hong lets out a scruff cough, feeling over his neck for indents of Yun Ki's nails.
"Chief, we need to head back to the Palace." Yun Ki commands, brows tightening.
The Chief looks at him riddled.
"Master, who's Bohoja and where has the Chief Guard disappeared?" He asks, watching Yun Ki untie the rope he's tied over Black Beauty.
Yun Ki ushers Soojin towards him.
She waddles to him, timidly.
"Place your foot here.." He instructs, slotting her leg onto the stirrup of the brown saddle.
He holds onto her waist, raising her over the horse, that neighs, in response to the weight.
Yun Ki hands her the reigns.
"Hold onto this, tight." He instructs as she looks at him, dreadedly.
"Trust me." He responds to her unsure expressions, tightening his hold on her closed fist.
He mounts himself on the horse, effortlessly, shifting his pelvis closer to Soojin's as he's now sharing the saddle on Black Beauty's back.
He engulf her from behind and Soojin feels her throat hitch.
Yun Ki holds Soojin's tight fists over the reign and guide her hands, causing the dark horse to prod backwards, out of the shed he'd been tightened into.
Soojin feels Yun Ki's head next to hers, his firm chest hitting her back.
He speaks instructions yet, Soojin's mind glitches.
"Now hold on tight, move your back into me so you don't slip.." he whispers, breath fanning the side of her neck as she timidly moves back, until a hand wraps around her waist, slotting her flush against his groin.
The Chief pulls out his own horse, staring at the view.
"Will anyone inform me of what is happening?" He asks, huffing as he mounts himself on his own horse.
Yun Ki gives him a look.
"He's back, Chief."
——————
Yun Ki checks on Soojin at every stop back.
"Is it too cold?" He asks, himself dressed in a sleeveless vest, muscles rubbing against Soojin's arms every time they're seated.
Each gallop has Yun Ki's front hitting her ass and she turns red.
Yun Ki explains before the Chief the predicament they're in and cleans his face by the river.
Soojin sits on a rock, watching Yun Ki wash his face of blood, face glistening and shining under moonlight.
When he's walking back to her, she watches black droplets rolling off of his forehead.
"Are you well rested?" He asks, unaware of the blotchy black colour running down his face and she watches how he'd dyed his pristine ash Grey hair for her, knowing it'd be ruined.
She nods and wipes the ends of his hairline with the hem of the jacket he's made her wear, now turning black.
"I'm fine, now." She responds, eyes raking over his freshly exposed scar that needed to be sowed shut.
He nods, helping her climb back as they chase after winds and each other's beating hearts.
—————
The two horses enter the front of the Palace, that seems to be bustling.
Yun Ki stares at Chief Hong in confusion as the Chief returns back the same look with hunched shoulders.
There are no guards guarding the entrance and Yun Ki jumps down, helping Soojin after him.
The three of them ascend steps into The Palace, being met by The Palace Women gushing down the steps, ends of their robes dipped in blood.
The women's faces go pale as they look at Soojin and clearly not recognising Yun Ki, who's scratching right side of his face, concealing his scar.
The Chief runs in as Soojin and Yun Ki stand in the Hall, watching chaos ensue.
"What has happened?!" The Chief roars at the flock of women, crying and hyperventilating down the steps.
One of them wails loudly, beating her chest.
"S-Sir, bloodbath..it's doomsday!!" She cries and Yun Ki runs up, eyes riddled in confusion.
Soojin follows, hot on her heels, as the women call out to her.
"Q-Queen Consort, your husband has turned into an Orphan!" They cry, grasping the ends of her gown as they kneel on the floor and Soojin's heart leaps out of her chest, watching Yun Ki disappearing into the corner of the wing.
Yun Ki runs into the left wing, following the bloodied footsteps and he knows where they are leading and yet he's wishing it's not what he thinks it is.
He's slowing in his steps watching rows of women dug down to their feet, nose rubbing the marble and he's grasping at his head, maintaining balance.
'God, you can't be this cruel to me!' He thinks, eyes glossy as he stumbles before the room filled with rows of women, dressed in black and beating their chests, pulling at their hair.
He's all too familiar with the Chamber.
He's been in and out of it, all his life.
Flashbacks of childhood folklore boom through his earns, his Eomeoni's gentle voice, her gentle pats over his hair.
"Yun Ki ah, you can do anything you set your mind to.''
"Yun Ki ah, your Hyung doesn't hate you, he-he's just a little different."
Yun Ki's breathless as he steps into the chamber, pushing past the mourning women, and there lie the remains.
There lies his mother's decapitated head, severed from her torso.
Head tossed down the bed she had been sleeping on, severed torso staining the white silk - red.
The windows of her Chamber are broken into, they're wide open and a rope falls down the window, into The Garden of Jasmine.
There's a squeeze in his chest as he falls with a thud, onto the wooden flooring, beside his Mother's skull, eyes rolled back to her head and tongue protruded out.
A neck that doesn't stop gushing.
He cradles her head, tears streaming down his face, blurring his vision.
"Eomeoni.." He whimpers.
Her pale white face looks back at him, lifeless and distressed.
He feels numb, almost like he's lost all that he'd ever possessed.
Why was The Lord testing his patience now, when he'd turned a new leaf and set out a different lane?
Was he really so undeserving of happiness?
From the corner of his eyes, he spots a white piece of fabric.
He reaches for it with shaky hands, reading the words dripping in his mother's blood.
'Her head looks better severed, don't you think so?
I bet this scene reminds you of something.
Something you did to your own, perhaps?
Take another fall for me.
You'll live and die as my shadow, for as long as the clouds of Gloom tower over Baekmin.
Annyeong Dongsaeng.'
----------Korean Words Used----------
Eomeoni = Mother
Annyeong = Hello (Informal way)
Dongsaeng = Younger Brother.
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Author's Note : Hello, Volume 1 has been quite a rollercoaster, hasn't it? Volume 2 will show you the backstory and the process of redemption, forgiveness, love and betrayal.
Buckle up, you're not ready ;)
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