Capítulo 12: Chapter 8: Dodba (Help)
"Young Master? What are you thinking about?" "She handled herself really well...she wouldn't have been able to do that before." "Didn't the physician tell us that due to her lost memories, it is inevitable that her personality would change?" "Has it though?" "Excuse me?" "Her personality hasn't really changed, she is just as shy, sweet and kind as she was before. It is just that her temperament isn't the same anymore, she isn't as docile as she used to be." "What are you thinking about?" "She...sometimes when I spend time with her, I feel like she hasn't really changed at all. Only her face has." "How would you know? You barely look at her when you do spend time with her." "I..." "What is it?" "Something is different. Something has changed, I just have no idea what it is." "Young Master?" "Never mind, just stay close to her for when she needs you."
I tried to bury my head into my books after that, but the issue just kept bothering me deep down and it wouldn't let me be. Yeon had changed for the better I had supposed, but there were now limitations between us that I was putting up and I had no idea why. For Yeon? Why was I guarding myself around her? She was the most innocent person in my life, so why? Why couldn't I look at her face yet? What was I scared of? And I knew she loved to read books in the past, but I had no idea how intelligent she was. I had no idea how artistic she was, how eloquent she could be, how much she makes me laugh with her facial expressions just like her brother always did. We could even debate about all sorts of topics for hours on end...I didn't have this with her brother. We were close that was for sure and we spent a lot of time together, but we were men and we didn't really...talk. But with Yeon being a girl, I didn't seem to have that problem. In fact, she was much too easy to talk to and that scared me. In the current situation that we were both in, I could not talk to her and I shouldn't. I haven't told her about her brother, I did tell her briefly about her parent's passing but for some reason, I wasn't truthful about her epilepsy and I didn't know why. But it was far too late for me to say anything about it now and it was my fault. I was so wrapped up in trying to find a way to get Hwi out of my father's sight that I temporarily forgot about Yeon and how she would react when I sent soldiers to pick up her brother and put him on the first ship to Liadong. There was nobody to catch her when she had her fit for the first time and now she couldn't remember anyone at all.I was about to partake in my first war, I finally had the chance to prove myself to my father and the world that I was more than an illegitimate fraud and I had major plans for my own future to think about afterwards...so why couldn't I get this girl out of my head?
"Bother? Brother? Can I come in for a few seconds?" "I...I told you not to bother me unless it is important Yeonnie, you know I have to start packing and..." "I have already packed for you." She replied swiftly as she made her way into my study without waiting for me to let her in. I could only bury my face in my books to hide the guilt that I felt every single time that I heard her usual cheery voice whilst still unaware of everything that had taken place. "Excuse me?" "I only came in to tell you that I have already packed for you so you can focus on your studies more." "What...I..." "Well, I couldn't expect you to do such a mundane task when you have more important things to think about, especially when you don't seem to use the servants that you have around you. Which is unusual..." "Look, you..." "...But I'm sure that you have your own reasons. So. You need to eat all of this before you leave and don't even think about leaving out a single grain of rice, or I'll be very upset. You are already quite skinny for somebody your age to be honest." "Excuse me?" "Can I ask you something?" "What is it?" "Why are you such a strict diet? You train all day and read for the rest of the day and you aren't even eating enough to sustain your body..." "well it isn't any of your business!" I snapped, I couldn't help it, I just did. Was she watching me? Why? It wasn't like I watched her? Nobody in this home cared about me so why did she all of a sudden? She couldn't even remember who I was and...and she was the first person that muddled my thoughts together. I couldn't think clearly around her and it was starting to throw me off. No matter what had happened between us, I still needed to move forward with my plans and goals so I could protect her and find her brother.
But I still felt bad about me snapping at her so I turned around to apologise to her, but she had already turned around and left before I could even say anything at all. I felt bad enough to follow her to her quarters, but she had shut her doors for once. So I tried to go back to my own quarters but for some reason, my feet refused to move. I had only a few minutes before my father came home and maybe I could catch a break from all of these doubts. Which was ironic due to the fact that the woman who resided here was the one who clouded my thoughts.
"...My Lady, I am loyal to you, but I have no option either. The other servants have made up their minds and..." "you have no option? I didn't know that you can lead a cow to water and make it drink. And since you are devoted to my service, you could always decline this request. They will surely appreciate your loyalty." "But..." "it is ok, inconsideration is inevitable for a disabled guest like myself, you may leave now." What a bunch of fools, I had had never been so disappointed in these servants in all my life. I specifically gave them to Yeon, thinking that they would help me to take care of her, and they dared to just leave her alone and defenceless? I...I mean I knew hat she could take care of herself, but that was before. Could she even remember how to fend for herself?
Before I knew it, I had temporarily lost control of myself and I had poked a hole in her paper doors so I could...watch over her, just to make sure that she was ok. What I was not expecting to see was her full undressing herself with her back turned to me before she got into her bath and started talking to herself with a rather wide smile on her face and rosy pink cheeks to match. "What a stubborn old fool. He practises weaponry non-stop until his fingers bleed and his body collapses right under him. That is all that he does: practice, study, eat a tiny portion of food that wasn't nearly enough to fill him up all day long and drink litres of water. What kind of life is that to live? Especially for a nobleman...even if he is only a quarter of it." She then proceeded to read out the poem Quatrain by Ch'oe Hang quite curiously before she dressed and dried herself without any assistance at all. I knew that she was still technically a lowborn, but it had been quite a long time since i had witnessed anyone who dressed and talked like her actually care for themselves.
Stop it, do not distract yourself now of all times. Just leave her alone, she will still be here after the war has ended. Yes, she gave me a good idea to start taking down my father, but it was honestly bad timing. This was a mistake, I should never have gotten this close her so quickly and I should not have given her such a big gift. I had never made a mistake like this in my life and if I wanted to survive long enough to kill my father for what he had done to me and put me through, then I could no longer let my thoughts be swayed. As horrific as my goals had come about, they were well within my reach now and I needed to make sure that all my years of suffering and humiliation wasn't for nothing at all.
But there was nothing wrong with taking on a smaller distraction to help myself breathe and loosen up a bit. Han Hui-Jee was the one that had my heart, but I hadn't achieved any accomplishments to show myself to her yet before I proposed marriage to her. So I turned around again to leave once I saw that Yeon had put herself to bed, but I just couldn't help myself but to take one last look at the flowers. And I was pleasantly surprised to see that she had taken rather good care of them. I was in a solemn mood now and I couldn't help but to recite the poem that Yeon had read out a few times until I heard someone say it back to me. I stood up as quickly as I could and I almost ran back to quarters where not even an hour later, a maid that I was unfamiliar with had walked in with a tea tray in her hands. She wasn't noticeably pretty or anything, in fact, she had a pretty common face. But when I smelled the tea that she had brought in, I could also smell the conspiracy behind it all. And I wouldn't have known it if it wasn't for...
"I have brought you tea, young master." "I did not ask for any tea, I wonder who asked you to bring it to me." "I..." "Speak. Who was it?" "Kim Chun-Ae hopes that you will remember her decade long service to you. She says that you sleep quite late, so you must have more refreshments..." "in all of the years that she has served me, she has never gone against my father's instructions on my diet. I really wonder why she is deciding to break her rules now?" "I..." "Is this tea made out of the snow on the chrysanthemums?" "Yes, young master." "And who allowed you to touch them at all?" "Forgive me young master, I..." "Get lost! Who taught you to touch what does not belong to you?" "If was a gift from you, so I..." "it was a gift from me to her, and therefore the flowers belong to her! You will kneel down outside of her quarters for an entire day in forgiveness, starting now. You have even scented your clothes with her flowers just to seduce me!" "Please forgive me, I...." "Go!"
"Young Master? Is everything ok?" "This household is turning upside down ever since she got here!" "Is that what you are really upset about?" "What do you mean?" "I thought that the Moung mistress making all of this commotion was a good thing? Isn't she helping you undermine your father?" "Now I am beginning to understand why her bother locked her up and limited her interactions..." "Young Master?" "...and it isn't entirely because of her epilepsy. That brat, that goddamned brat, who is she to cause so much chaos at once? I..." "Young Master, will you permit me an observation?" "What is it?" "You are not angry at the maids, and you are not overwhelmed by their advances. You are upset that the one who showed up here tonight wasn't the person that you expected to see..." "What are you talking about? She was here today." "Young Master, you are just starting to finally achieve your goals. You need to go to war and win over the general so he can grant you a place in the palace before your father has the chance to throw his weight around and shower you with nepotism. After everything you have been through, you cannot allow him to ruin your only chance of being noticed for your merits alone. And you cannot be distracted; if you want to protect Yeon, you have to maintain some distance. Young Master?" "Bring me that maid tomorrow, I will make use of her before I leave." "Young Master?" "I am angry and I need to vent out my emotions. And I need somebody to play with." "The Young Mistress...?" "She is to be kept well out of this until I have had enough. Protecting her is my top priority, even if I have to sacrifice my time with her. And Dal?" "Yes?" "You are not coming to war with me, you will stay by her side and report everything to me. Every action, emotion, thought and sentence that she utters, I must know about. Keep a journal for me to read when I come back."
Capítulo 13: Chapter 9: Eob (Karma)
The day of the banquet had arrived, and I already had everything set up on my own. My servant's abandoning me had just come on time to be honest since I was the one who was doing everything in my power to make them abandon me. I had been rather difficult on purpose ever since I had received the flowers and by now I had the entire household gossiping about what a conceited and arrogant lowborn I was. But I really didn't care about what anyone thought about me...apart from a single person. A single person who had been hiding from me ever since he indirectly shared his thoughts with me. But I held on well to my thoughts of lowering my expectations and I decided to carry out this task for him in exchange for the debt of saving my life. Who knows what would happen to our relationship once he got back from the war; he might continue to ignore me, he might indulge me for another game, who knows. I was trying my hardest not to get too attached to him and just leave him alone for his father's sake, but I was slowly beginning to realise that I had a very strong self of justice and it was beginning to rule every part of my being. And I knew that I would eventually end up causing some mayhem or another, so maybe it was best just to keep to myself after all.
"Yeonnie?" Why did the world always stand still for a moment or two whenever he called for me? Why did my heart beat this hard? Why did I always have to look away from him right before I faced him? What exactly was the nature to this 'friendship' of ours? Why was I already so confused and couldn't stay away, even if I wanted to? No, I had to fight this, so I chose not to look at him as we conversed briefly just as the whole household had descended into chaos for putting on his important banquet. "How are you? Yeon? Won't you even look at me?" "And what purpose do you have for me now? Shall I get rid of someone else for you? Or will you snap at me again?" "It isn't like that and you know it?" "How do I know it? You have been avoiding me as soon as you lost your purpose for me." "Is that what you think about me? That I just use and manipulate people?" "Why lie about it if it is in your nature? Your circumstances and your upbringing have no doubt at all have something to do with that so in all honesty, I cannot really blame you. I just feel rather disappointed that you would take advantage of my memory loss and make me do your bidding as if I am some sort of puppet on a set of strings." Before I could get another word in, he almost charged at me and caught me by the arm, dragged me inside my quarters and pinned me against the wall his hands so close to my waist that I longed to hold them, even in a moment like this.
"You...how dare you! You do not know me, you do not remember me, you do not know what I have been through and you dare to make judgments in front of me? Who are you? Who do you think you are?" "Why do you care?" "Excuse me?" "Why do you care so much about my judgments? My thoughts?" "You have had the entire world against you for so long, what is it all for?" "What? What are you..." "You give yourself to your country, you bleed for them, you have cause and you have a high sense of justice just like myself. So please, do not go down this path." "What the hell are you talking about?" "Do not follow your father's path or it will be the biggest mistake of your life."
*********************
How? There was no conceivable way that she...no, that wasn't possible. There was no way that she could have figured me out that quickly. She...she didn't know what she was talking about. She was just a child, a mere child at 16 years of age. Even if she thought that she knew everything, that didn't mean that it was true. And just because she accompanied me a few times, it did not mean that she knew me. Nobody knew me; Seo Hwi had only seen the good in me, but even he was unaware of how rotten I really was, just like my father had always said I was. "Yeon...just stay here and get on with the housekeeping book, you are not allowed to read anything else..." "if you want to help the people of this country, then you must become a part of them. Do not become another nobleman man who says he wants good and still sets himself apart from the people. That will only make them distrust you more, no mater what you do for them." "And just how on earth would you know?" "Because I am one of them. Just because I do not remember what it is like to be a part of them, it does not mean that I am the noblewoman that you dress me up to be. I..." "You what?" "I feel unusual in these clothes, these shoes, this makeup, these gifts and with the attention that you give me." "Then give it all back to me and go on your way, let me see how you can live on your own."
I only said that in anger, but when that brat actually pushed me away and started taking off her jewellery and undoing her jacket I really did for the first time loose my temper and I ran outside of her quarters, just to shut the doors on her and lock her in her room so she couldn't leave. And it was only then that I had realised that I had already missed out on the beginning of the banquet. Not that I particularly cared, this banquet was just a show of my father's supporters to rub it in this faces of the Imperial Royal Family members that were against him in court. It was a reckless move of his and he was just asking to be arrested at this point for his pure arrogance if not anything else yet. Bet before I could even get to the other side of the yangban, all I could hear was shouting and screaming before I saw all of the servants rush towards my father who looked extremely livid. But before I could even ask anyone what had happened, I could hear a very familiar set of pleadings and crying from the servants who looked like they had bathed in soot?
"Why are you making such a fuss here? In front of my guests? Where are your manners? And how could you have come outside looking like such a mess? Have you forgotten all of the rules of this household!" "Master, please forgive me! It wasn't any of us! No-one would come out like this! It was the-" "What on earth has happened?" I couldn't help but to intervene in a timely manner. No matter how angry I was, I wasn't going to sell Yeon out and risk having her live apart from me. "And why do you all reek of alcohol?" "Young Master, we only took few sips of the wine before we served it. We all felt a little tipsy, so we just wanted to take a small walk around before we started serving the guests. But who knew that we would walk into a trap..." "A trap?" "...there was a loose bag of mugwort ashes, old wastewater and logs dumped on us!" Even I had a hard time keeping my composure, but for Yeon's sake, I had to act completely oblivious to this.
"And who do you suspect would pull such an awful prank?" "Young Master, this household has always abided my strict rules not a single person here has made a single mistake. But ever since that young woman-" "What young woman? Nam-Jeon? What exactly is going on here?" "They must be referring to the new maid that has been kneeling as punishment today, there is no other young woman here. I have heard talks of the other servants all bad mouthing her at how poorly she does her job. Or maybe it is Chun-Ae who has been loosing her touch as it is, and is constantly being demoted as of late. And since it is she who keeps letting the other servants down, it is only fair that we rid ourselves of her to stop this embarrassment." I had my father and he knew it, and because he knew that it was happening in such a public event, I knew that there was no chance in hell that Chun-Ae was able to get away with her life, not anymore.
Luckily enough for my father, he managed to reign everyone in and make them stay for the banquet. But I didn't feel like being his show pony anymore, and instead I went to confront Yeon so I knew how to move forward before the war happened just as the new servant was being dragged away by my father's guards. But I could not walk past those doors, not anytime soon, so I stationed myself outside of her door to talk to her.
"Was that prank your great idea for revenge? Yeon?" "She almost drowned me, so I only returned the favour. I swallowed so much water for so long that I wanted them to knew how it felt." "Have you always been this cunning, Yeon?" "I am not a scheming person, but I will never let anyone bully me and just get away with it either." "During such a public event?" "How else would your father make such a harsh decision for her instead of forgiving her each time. And I used the logs to cane her as my own form of punishment for trying to poison me. And after today, she is going to wish that she had killed me so I wouldn't have had the chance to humiliate her."
What on earth was I thinking? Of course Yeon wasn't a cunning and scheming person like all noble people. She indeed just had a strong self of justice, just like I did. There was nothing wrong with her getting back on the people who had harmed her, especially since she had unknowingly parted from her brother and I certainly could not protect her 7 days a week. It was good that she knew how to take care of herself...so why did I still have some doubts? "You have done a very good job and I will reward you for this when I can. You should remind me when I come home from the war." "Are you going to at least say goodbye to me before you leave?" I could not and would not answer that question, and I had to attend he banquet before my father humiliated me in front of everyone. So I just left without saying a word, but not before picking a flower and sticking it under her doors, as my way of telling her to stay strong until I returned. And hopefully if I was lucky enough, I would be able to protect the two most important women in my life to make it up to Hwi before I found him and found a way to bring him home to his sister. I could only hope that whatever happened between us didn't damage the trust between us too much so I could convince him to keep well out of my father's sight whilst I returned Yeon to him...
*******************
"Master Dal! You promised me that you would keep me alive! Why are you now...after everything that I have done for you...everything I have given up for you..." "The Young Master has finally made a decision about your fate, who am I to interfere with it?" "Yeon, it is because of that bitch Yeon...she wooed him into killing me...and Chun-Ae, she made me fall from grace to this humble existence...I wish to drink her blood and chew her bones!" "Stop being so dramatic and get ready to meet your maker. And don't even think about smashing anything, I have come with multiple supplies."
Estado de energía semanal
200+ Ranking de
Poder 
0 Piedra de
Poder También te puede interesar
Comentario de párrafo