บท 41: You're the remedy.
A knock was heard on Yun Ki's chamber door.
Then, two.
The gold encrusted heavy gate shuttering and thundering as the prods over it grew heavier by the minute.
Yun Ki was sprawled in bed, smothered into Areum's breasts, drooling over the cushiony feeling her mounds lent his heavy head.
Areum, who had her fingers tangled in his hair shifts uncomfortably, causing Yun Ki's head to roll off of what he had been using as a makeshift cushion.
His eyes are groggy and the intrusive panders and rapt placed by the person behind the door increased in intensity, causing Yun Ki's eyes to widen as he watches how the latch over his side of the door is about to displace, to allow the doors to open.
He covers Areum's naked figure in the soft linen of his bedsheets and wears his sandals, peering shut his robe as he runs a hand over his face.
Whoever was on the other side of the door was going to be greeted with nothing but a thunderstorm.
They should've known how Yun Ki hated being woken up whilst he was in deep sleep.
He unlatches the lock, peering open the door.
He lets out a discontent sigh, shoulders slumping.
He throws daggers at the timid person on the other end.
Chief Hong.
Yun Ki closes the door behind him, wanting to hear him out in private.
"What is it?" He roars.
Chief Hong look perplexed, doesn't understand how an event such as this could have happened again.
It was as though destiny was repeating itself.
Deja vu, more like.
"Your Majesty, please forgive me for awakening you this late..I agree, it is a rather odd hour to be jolted from sleep.." The Chief mutters, staring down, hands bowed.
Yun Ki grunts, flicking a hair falling down his topknot, behind his ear.
He'd messily tied his hair up before sleep consumed him and wasn't looking like an Emperor in the very least.
"This better be important.." He responds, voice raspy and deep.
The Chief nods, fervently.
"It is, Young Master. Queen Consort Soojin's Palace Women are worried sick." The Chief comments, raising an eye to look at Yun Ki's confused ones.
"W-What happened to my Queen? Is she alright?" He asks, worried.
The Chief, gulps nervously.
"Young Master, she had promised her maidservants that she'd change to her clothes and head to bed however, she's-well, she's disappeared from her Chamber.."
Yun Ki stands still, wounded fist clenching, drawing blood back to the rim.
He was pressing down so hard, he'd undo the sutures Areum had placed so carefully.
Discarding The Chief's further pleas and explanations, Yun Ki spurns him from his path.
Yun Ki walks ahead, feet stomping as he grasps the silk robe he wore to bed, tighter against him.
His sandal clad feet reverberate throughout the corridor, down to Soojin's Chamber and he opens the door wide, watching how she'd discarded her Banquet clothes.
What catches his eye is the Sapphire Ring that he'd presented before her, in hopes of truce and reconciliation.
He wondered if she'd run away, after watching him explode and self-inflict his own self with wounds, deliberately.
"How could you let a girl as frail as her sneak out of The Palace?!" Yun Ki roars as the maidservants sitting beside Soojin's unmade bed, head bowed down.
He grasps a maidservant by the arm, pulling her to him, aggressively.
"Where is she?" He whispers, teeth clenching.
The poor woman withers under him and shakes her head.
"P-Please forgive m-me, Your Majesty. I-I have no knowledge of her whereabouts." She stutters, falling to her knees as Yun Ki pushes her back.
"Useless, all of you! You've been brought here as slaves, to tend for and look after The Queen Consort!" He spits.
He's enraged yet not to the extent that he could go ballistic.
He's desperate, in a frenzy as he knocks open Royal Chambers, finding his Ministers in compromising positions with the servants of The Palace.
Pathetic, revolting, sickening and nauseating.
Agh, he's going crazy.
His eyes flicker over to the balcony where he'd crushed and contused his hand and rushes towards it, Guards and The Chief following him, closely.
The rattles of metal against metal as the guards run with their weapons, echo through the high ceilings of the Palace.
Yun Ki rushes into the balcony, out of breath, for he has run past wings, down and up floors, all in search of her.
The balcony is empty.
But the rouge he left over the cracked cement is very prominent and he runs a finger over the crack, wincing.
Falling back on the balcony railing, he hears the wind gust past his ears, hair freeing themselves from the knot he'd tied atop his head.
It'd rain soon.
And, it did.
It had started raining in Baekmin, after 7 long years of scarcity.
Soojin had come into his life as a gust of wind, showering him in feelings and thoughts he believed he had no means of feeling or experiencing.
The sounds of heavy droplets hitting against the bushes and shrubs that line his Garden of Jasmine, are heard.
The aroma of moist soil fills his head and he looks up into the purple, raging skies.
The clouds look as though they've been torn into half, the crackles of lightening, tearing them apart.
He likes to think they're him and Soojin, both being held apart by unearthly forces.
He stares at his hand, that had been resting on the railing.
But he notices how the Red Sapphire glistens under the touch of soft drizzles of rain.
He adores the deep red colour, that mimics the appearance of blood.
Just as he's lost in his own thoughts and theories, he hears crunching of leaves from under the balcony, in the Garden.
He watches a figure seated behind The Cherry Blossom tree.
He knows it's her.
Jumping down the balcony, 2 stories high, he lands on his feet with a loud thud.
The mud and muck over his feet jumps and coats his robe in a dirty brown hue.
He's drenched, silk robe clinging onto his hard ridges and pecs as his ash grey locks are matted and stuck on his forehead as though he'd emerged out of a sauna.
He walks towards the tree, battling his eyes as rain downpours on him.
It's like he is being punished.
Punished by the intensity of rainfall that had been beating down on him.
'Take that you rascal!' He believes the God of Rainfall would be thinking, watching him from above.
He watches a trembling figure in blue, hair disheveled and shoulders shaky.
It's her.
What amazes him further is that it is here that he sees her in most of his dreams.
He sees her extending her arms towards him, radiating immense joy and surrounded by a golden hue.
There's laughter erupting past her lips, in his dream.
However, right now, the Skies are in a frenzy.
There's clouds of gloom surrounding both of them.
It's as though The heavens are weeping over the discontentment between two lovers.
It's a melancholy, isn't it?
With hasty steps, he reaches the other side of the tree to find Soojin's head hid in her knees as she's held them close to her chest with all the power she holds.
"Soojin-ah?" Yun Ki calls out, watching her immobile state.
He wishes he had a linen, he could've wrapped past her shoulders.
He ducks down, kneeling beside her form.
"Soojin.." He mumbles, placing a warm hand over her arm, making her flinch.
She looks up at him, eyeliner runny and stray strands of her hair sticking to her own face, like the expanse of the roots of a tree.
She meets his eyes.
His worried and concerned eyes.
"Wh-What are you doing here in the middle of the night?" He asks, concern dripping off of his lips, much like the rain covering and shielding his own.
Soojin's eyes are red, as though she'd been crying.
"I-I" She tries to speak but chatters, the cold winds trailing goosembumps past her spine.
Yun Ki rubs a thumb over the arm he'd placed his hand on.
"I was trying to clear my mind.." She breathes out.
Yun Ki tries to reason with her, tries to read her expressions, gestures, body language and yet fails.
"What happened?" He asks, voice shaky.
She looks him in the eye, running a hand over her face, flicking away the remnant drops over her eyebrows.
"You confuse me." She says.
Yun Ki feels attacked, as though several daggers had been pulled out of his back.
He looks at her confused.
"What might you mean?" The sound of rain falling over and around them, quickens much like their respective heart rates.
"Never mind. It was a mistake expecting anything from you, in the first place. Especially considering how dense you are." She comments, standing up.
Yun Ki stays kneeled, staring at the empty spot Soojin had discarded so rashly.
A crackle of the heavy clouds breaks him out of his own dilemma.
He gets up to his feet watching Soojin waddle away into The Palace.
"What part of me confuses you?" He asks, rather shouts out to her.
Soojin stops in her tracks.
She looks back at Yun Ki, who's now walking close to her.
He's drenched but then again, so is she.
"Every part of you riddles me, Yun Ki. From the way you raise your voice at me, drag me around like your little porcelain doll to the times you're saying romantic and sappy lines to me and sending me betrothal gifts..What do you want from me?" She screams.
Yun Ki walks towards her, hand gripping her waist as he pins his wet and glistening torso against her own.
Soojin is holding onto his chest, pushing him away and yet the feel of his muscular chest baffles her.
"What in the world are you doing?!" She shrieks, digging her nails into the silk he was dressed in.
"Do you not know what I want, Soojin?" He responds, staring at her eyes and flickering his gaze over her lips.
Soojin looks away from him, pressing her knees into his legs, trying to wiggle away from his grasp.
"I-I want you to leave me." Soojin asks, patting on his heavy chest.
Yun Ki grabs her struggling hands with one of his own, grabbing her wrists and pinning them down.
"I'm not letting you go." He roars, tightening his grip over her waist, causing her to arch her back.
"Not now, Not ever.." He seethes, through his teeth and Soojin's watching the way he looks at her, deep into her soul.
She's felt this way before.
She's felt this whenever he's pulled her close.
Close enough to feel his heart beating against her own.
Close enough to feel his breath linger over her lips.
Close enough to burn into the touch he places on her waist, like wax being sucked into a wick.
"Do you want to know why?" Yun Ki asks, dropping her hands that weren't squirming anymore and rather laid by her sides, obediently.
Soojin shakes her head, no.
As though she already knows what's happening.
As though she knows the words that might erupt past his lips and into her ear.
The rain's come to a stop, the winds are thunderous, there could be a whirlwind, a typhoon and yet none of them would be stronger than the feelings Yun Ki holds in his chest, tight.
The feelings rattling against the gates of the prison he's abandoned his heart in.
He trails a hand up her arm, feeling the raised dots lining her milky soft skin.
He cups a hand over her plush cheeks.
His mouth is dry and it's as though he's been deprived of Adam's Ale all 32 years of his life.
Soojin's gulping, her body, that was once jittery and shivering like a shrivelled up prune, is now filled with a feverish touch.
He gathers courage, breathing out, wounded hand over her waist bunching into a fist, nails piercing his own palm.
It's now or never, he thinks to himself.
It's time.
"It's because I like you." He mutters, lips brushing against her nose as she stands in his grasp as a statue.
Eyes wide, mouth agape.
All before a man who's bore his heart bare.
"I like you the way a man likes a woman." He repeats, a lot more louder and resolute.
He's hurting and yet, she's the remedy.
"Joahaeyo, Soojin ah."
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