🚨 Warning: This chapter includes sensitive content related to suicide and self-harm. Please remain mindful of this as you read. If you feel uncomfortable, do not hesitate to stop reading. 🚨
My head was dizzy. I had no strength in my body at all.
When I cut deep into my arm with a shard of mirror, I was terrified by the horrifying sensation and by the sight of blood gushing like a fountain.
Once I had actually done it, I was scared I might die, and I wanted to call out to Bin.
But seeing my reflection through the broken mirror, I steeled myself at the sight of my blood dripping.
I recalled that six people had died because of me and thought of General Hunmu, who was still alive but whose bones were shattered. Even though I tried to steady my mind, when I felt dizzy, I called out to Bin, even if only faintly, but after passing out from the disorientation, I remembered nothing.
Yet, despite enduring such an agonising moment, I apparently hadn’t died. As I struggled for a long time, barely able to open my eyes, I finally managed to lift my eyelids.
Instead of the familiar ceiling of my home, I saw ornate patterns and realised I was still alive in this strange world.
Seeing the white cloth wrapped around my hand and the court ladies bustling about with startled faces as I woke, I closed my eyes again.
How long had I been lying there? Who had found me and saved me like this?
Perhaps I had been hovering on the brink of death, for as soon as I awoke, the court ladies who helped me up made me drink an unidentified black decoction. I was still too weak to refuse; half went down, and half spilled, but only after swallowing the entire decoction was I able to lie back down.
“My lady…”
Lying dazed after drinking the decoction and staring at the ceiling, I heard Bin call to me, her eyes swollen from crying. She hadn’t been by my side for long, yet in those swollen eyes, I saw a pure, untainted innocence. At the same time, I wanted to tell her not to cry because of me.
“You have been lying unconscious for five days… sniff… my lady… why on earth did you do something so frightening?”
I really must have lost a lot of blood to have been lying here for five days.
Bin’s voice came to me in a low, muffled hum, and I let out a faint breath. Then, after stifling a few more sobs with her hand over her mouth, she carefully took my hand, telling me I must recover quickly.
“Who… found… me…?”
When I had resolved to die, I spoke informally, but after hovering on the brink of death and waking, my true self returned. Since I had never grown up with the notion of anyone being beneath me, speaking informally to Bin had always felt rather uncomfortable.
“I… was the one who found you… my lady. That day, you seemed greatly distressed, so I was going to come by at dawn to see if you were resting… but since I could not sleep, I stopped by.”
It was only natural that Bin found me strange, speaking informally as I did and even asking about the ingredients of the poison.
“But my lady… you were bleeding… and had collapsed…”
“I’ve… shown you an unsightly sight.”
She must have been so shocked seeing me collapsed on the blood-stained floor. I only managed to reply that much before closing my eyes.
‘I don’t know. I don’t know what this feeling is.’
I was so weak that I didn’t even have the energy to think about Bin, who had found me.
If I had just used polite speech like usual, would no one have found me?
It was just a fleeting thought.
But not long after I closed my eyes, I suddenly heard Bin spring up and leave. I assumed it was the senior court lady or a royal physician and kept my heavy eyelids closed.
I opened my eyes again when I sensed someone sitting beside me. My body seemed to notice before my mind that it probably wasn’t the senior court lady or a royal physician.
“...”
Through my heavy, half-open eyelids, I saw the king’s face. His usually ruthless expression looked as pale as mine — perhaps because I was in pain.
Staring blankly at his expression, devoid of laughter, anger, or sorrow, I recalled one by one the looks the king had shown before I attempted suicide.
He had told me to stay by his side, yet now I tried to leave like this again — was he going to punish me?
Having already lost so much blood, if I were to receive any punishment, my body would not be able to endure it, and I might truly die.
We stared at each other in silence for a long time. In that meeting of gazes, there was no trace of any intense emotion.
I was the first to break the gaze, frowning from dizziness and closing my eyes again. After lying in bed for five days, the decoction I had taken suddenly stirred my stomach, leaving me feeling greatly drained.
“The first time I saw you lying there.”
When I first met the king, a shiver ran through me. It was because of his voice.
His voice was like rain falling in the scorching heat of midday. That was how I felt when I heard his voice.
And for the first time in a long while, that same feeling crept over my body, knot by knot.
“Anger welled up. When you woke, I planned to bind you as if to show you, and make you feel the pain of the choice you had made.”
“...”
“When you didn’t wake even after a day, that anger pierced the heavens. I vowed that I would tear Hunmu’s limbs apart before your eyes. I even thought of tying you to a pillar in my quarters so you wouldn’t be able to take a single step.”
Exhausted from the effort, I barely opened my eyes again. The king, just as when I first saw him, still showed no expression on his face.
“By the second day, that anger wandered aimlessly, powerless. It still shook me, but seeing you asleep like the dead, it lost its strength like a dying flame.”
“...”
“Even by the third day, when you still hadn’t woken, that anger had vanished. All my red-hot emotions seemed buried beneath your pale face. And yesterday, seeing you still asleep like the dead, I felt a wish for the first time: I just wanted to tell you to wake up, promising to make it all as if it had never happened.”
“...”
“Going outside with Hunmu, and even trying to leave like this again despite being told to stay by my side — I’ll let it all be as if it never happened. It was that thought that finally made you open your eyes today.”
Five days. Even in the world I lived in, that was long enough in a hospital for many to worry and feel despair if someone didn’t wake.
Perhaps that was why the sharp edge I had seen in the king’s voice, face, and gaze before I attempted suicide had completely disappeared without a trace.
He watched me slowly blink my eyes open, then looked at my wrist, wrapped in a white cloth.
“Don’t worry about General Hunmu. He’s receiving treatment for his illness, and none of his bones are broken.”
None of his bones were broken? I had desperately tried to stop the Gakseok before it went any further, yet quite some time had already passed.
For some reason I couldn’t explain, it felt as if the rocks that had been tightly packed in my chest had crumbled into sand and quietly slipped away.
Now that even a little of my guilt toward him had lifted, breathing felt a bit easier.
“That elderly woman who was a shaman was sent to live far from the palace. Since she wasn’t killed, you need not feel any guilt either.”
So he lied to me?
I barely managed to move the space between my brows in response to the king’s words, but he soon quietly rose from his seat.
“Rest. Your body has become very weak.”
The king said nothing more to me and turned to leave. The moment he was gone, I thought of the physicians who had pledged to devote their lives to caring for me. Even though I didn’t want to dwell on the thought that something might have happened to me, I realised they wouldn’t have remained unharmed either.
“...”
Hearing that the elderly woman I thought was dead was actually alive, and that General Hunmu was also fine, the festering anguish in my heart, which had driven me to attempt suicide, slowly began to fade.
But why did a corner of my heart still feel hollow, as if a hole had opened up there? Through that gap, the king’s voice poured down like rain.
・・・・・
At first, I could barely manage even rice gruel, but over time, thanks to the physicians who tended to me with utmost care, my body regained strength.
I was taking a different medicinal tonic morning and evening than the one that had put me in danger, and since yesterday I’d even been able to eat light meals, so waking up in the morning wasn’t as difficult. Above all, with less stress, I was recovering more quickly.
The king, who had eased my guilt by telling me about General Hunmu and the elderly woman, hadn’t visited since that day, so all I had to do was focus on regaining my strength.
It was only when I went to replace the white cloth still tightly wrapped around my wrist with a clean one that I realised just how deep and brutal the cut had been. Still, since it was healing, I tried to take some comfort in that.
“My lady, the leaves are turning red now. I don’t like the cold, but seeing the autumn foliage somehow warms my heart."
After I recovered, Bin never once mentioned what had happened that day. Instead, she spoke only of things like the weather or Narae, helping me focus on other matters. The only difference was that at night, unlike before, she would often sit outside my door for a long while before I fell asleep.
I thought about telling her that she didn’t need to do that anymore and could go rest, but I stayed silent, thinking it might have been the king’s orders.
It had already been quite some time since I first came here — long enough for this place, which I had visited in the height of summer, to transform into autumn, its leaves glowing red. So much had happened, and surely much more lay ahead, yet as I watched the autumn foliage swaying in the cool breeze, my heart felt unexpectedly serene.
Only after things had quieted did I feel relief that the king hadn’t come looking for me. And then, for the first time, his expressionless face came to mind.
He had told me about the emotions he felt while I was unconscious. Even though I had attempted suicide, he neither punished me nor sought me out. Instead, he remained quietly distant, leaving me curious about what he was thinking.
Did my suicide attempt shock him that much?
I gazed at the sunlight pouring through the leaves in the cool breeze. Shielding my eyes from the glare, I realised that the hollow I had felt lingering in a corner of my heart was still there.
What was this emptiness?
Besides my desire to go home and my fear of the king, there was a hollowness I was feeling for the first time. It was unfamiliar, yet not entirely strange.
After sitting there for some time, Narae, perhaps wanting my attention, barked loudly and flailed her legs.
I had been too weak from pain to pay attention, but when I looked at her, Bin quietly made a "tch!" sound, signalling her to be quiet.
“Narae has grown a lot.”
“They do tend to grow so quickly, don’t they? At this rate, she might soon be taller than my lady.”
I approached Narae, who was tied to a rope, her movements restricted. Though she was usually more attached to the king than to me, she wagged her tail enthusiastically and rolled onto her back, showing her belly as a greeting when I came near. Even back when I had brought Narae along, the time spent with the king had been fairly pleasant.
Even as Bin tried to stop me, I gently stroked Narae’s head. She bit at the cloth on my wrist, not realising it was wrapped over a wound, tugging at it — but she was still just an innocent little one, so I let her be.
Bin leapt up and scooped Narae into his arms, and watching that, I suddenly wondered: why was it so hard for people to understand and forgive mistakes or flaws when someone acted out of ignorance, while it seemed so easy and natural to do the same for an animal?
That thought didn’t necessarily come to me because the king crossed my mind.
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