・・・・・
It seemed that more than ten days had already passed since the king last visited my quarters.
The crimson maple leaves, turning red with each passing moment, marked the flow of time, yet neither the eunuchs nor the head court lady who usually accompanied him appeared.
I thought I would feel at ease if he didn’t appear, but being in the palace made it impossible not to think of him.
That night, when I said I cried thinking of my mother, he immediately saw through my lie since he knew I didn’t even know the date here.
The king, who claimed he let things be out of curiosity about how far he could embrace them, in truth seemed — contrary to his terrifying words — to have always pushed the truly cruel deeds aside. Without him, I suddenly had so much time to think alone, and that was how it felt.
Even General Hunmu’s bones hadn’t been broken, and the elderly shaman, who was said to have been killed, was still alive.
And above all, the king, who said I would regret not killing him, might have been a person burdened with such deep wounds in his heart from the very beginning.
The moment I resolved to take my own life, the feeling of having no attachment to life lasted only briefly, yet there was nothing that could save me.
If the king’s emotions, spoken so matter-of-factly, were the very same ones I had glimpsed in that fleeting instant, continuing in every moment since…
“...”
Perhaps I, too, had inflicted quite a deep wound upon him.
Being alone in the room, a certain tenderness toward the king kept growing, so I stood up. Bewildered by how my feelings shifted from moment to moment, I decided to at least walk through the flower garden.
“!”
But when I stepped into the flower garden, I was surprised to see that all the flowers planted there had been replaced with sangsahwa. The ones I had seen years ago at Seonunsa with my family were not so vibrant, but these bloomed proudly, flaunting their deep crimson petals.
What was going on? How did sangsahwa suddenly bloom here? I thought they didn’t exist, since the king didn’t even know the name of the flower.
And who had ordered that all the flowers be replaced with sangsahwa like this? Could it have been the king?
Seeing the crimson flower garden, my heart stirred for no particular reason, and I drew closer. I had spent much time resting in my room from losing so much blood, but now, even walking outside like this, I felt neither dizzy nor weak.
But just as I approached the flowerbed, a man who had been sitting in the grass suddenly rose to his feet. He stood up upon seeing me first.
I was surprised, and his expression changed just as much as mine. But soon, it faded, and he gazed at me steadily.
“...”
What was it about this atmosphere that made it so hard for either of us to speak first?
The cool autumn breeze filled the space between him and me, only to vanish, then return to fill it again, and fade once more.
“Has your body fully recovered?”
I gave a slight nod in affirmation. Then, realising that it was the king who had turned this flower garden into a field of sangsahwa, I averted my gaze.
Could it be that he found out I had lied about the meaning of the sangsahwa? I couldn’t quite comprehend how he had managed to plant them here when he hadn’t even known about them before.
"Not long ago, I happened to learn that the sangsahwa blooms here, too. I hadn’t paid them any attention before and didn’t even realise they bloomed, but I thought you might like them, so I planted some."
“...”
“I thought it would be better if you didn’t see me until you fully recovered, but here we are, running into each other just as I was about to take a quick look around and leave."
I remembered Bin saying that Narae had started barking for no reason recently.
Perhaps it wasn’t meaningless barking; maybe Narae had been barking at the king. After all, she had barked several times while alone before we came out.
When the king fell silent, the palace became as quiet as if not a single person were there. Only the sangsahwa swayed in the wind, here and there, making a sound like a song.
The king quietly gazed at the sangsahwa, then touched a flower with his index and middle fingers.
"I’ve thought a lot about what my feelings for you are."
“...”
"Whenever the sudden urge to see you grew strong, I would look at these flowers."
“...”
"Since the leaves and flowers can’t meet, they are said to carry a sad story here."
“!”
"In your world, you said these are given to someone you like, didn’t you?"
At the king’s words, my eyes darted side to side. I couldn’t tell whether he was pretending not to notice that I had lied again, or if he genuinely didn’t realise. Seeing his face again after ten days, it looked even more gaunt than before, and instead of fear, a heavy, numbing emptiness welled up inside me.
What on earth were these feelings? Where were they creeping out from?
Now that I thought about it, for the past few days, some inexplicable force had been quietly calming me in a way I couldn’t understand. How should I even describe it?
The emotions that had been so turbulent sometimes grew unnaturally still. It wasn’t simply because the king hadn’t come looking for me, or because I had learned that the elderly shaman was still alive. It wasn’t because of General Hunmu, either.
“That’s why I planted them here. I gathered every sangsahwa, even those that were already withering, and planted them all.”
“...”
"I thought I should see you before all these flowers withered, and thankfully, I got to see you before they did. Or maybe not. Perhaps I shouldn’t have."
Since Bin often travelled to so many places in my stead, she must have seen the sangsahwa planted here. Even if she didn't mention it, I felt the king must have ordered her to stay silent. And then it suddenly hit me — was bringing up Narae her way of giving me even the slightest hint?
Neither of us stepped forward, so the distance between us remained unchanged.
In the pleasantly mild weather, neither hot nor cold, I lightly held the fluttering flap of my chima. Since it felt awkward to leave first, I thought I had to do something.
“Does it feel easier to breathe now that I’m not looking for you?”
What thoughts filled his mind during those ten days I didn't see him?
Without once bringing up General Hunmu or my suicide attempt, the king calmly asked what he had been curious about, what he wanted to know. Yet, at that rain-soaked voice, the emptiness I had felt before stirred and rattled inside me again, and my lips parted.
“In just a few days, it will already be almost three months since you came here.”
Three months? Had it already been that long?
Only then did I realise that there had been countless nights during which I forgot my friends and didn’t even think of Kyuhyun.
By now, I was no longer surprised that I didn’t think of Kyuhyun.
As I reflected on the three months that had passed, the king finally took the first step and stood before me.
It was just a single step.
It was an attitude that didn’t suit him at all. He, who could so easily intoxicate, summon, and dominate me. It was an attitude that simply made no sense.
“I couldn’t breathe because I wasn’t looking for you.”
My heart sank at his words, spoken with an unexpected lightness.
It was because a person’s true feelings — so easy, yet in the world I live in, impossible to express properly — rippled like waves and spread through my heart.
Since when did he show me this much sincerity?
After being thrown into this unfamiliar world, I spent my days consumed by fear, and as I frantically adjusted to palace life, I couldn’t fully notice or feel the king’s true feelings.
But now, seeing him for the first time in ten full days, I could feel his sincerity so overwhelmingly that I did not know how to respond.
General Hunmu was fine, and the person he claimed to have killed was actually alive. So, in front of a king showing such sincerity, how was I supposed to act?
What were my true feelings toward the king?
For the first time, since coming here and having shared space intimately, I finally reflected on what feelings I actually had.
The emotions that had always been dismissed as simply frightening, ruthless, or just the way he was suddenly felt strange when I tried to examine them closely, and I found myself not wanting to face my own feelings.
“That suffocating feeling felt like it was about to reach its limit, but seeing your face made it all right.”
The king, having gathered all the wilting sangsahwa and planted them in the flower garden, quietly held me in his gaze against the crimson backdrop, as if he were a person who could finally breathe.
Even after learning the flower’s original, sorrowful meaning, he planted them thinking only of the meaning I had lied about.
With his tall, graceful stature, the way he spoke to the children to bring Narae, and the calm, anger-free expression on his face, it was clear he had the qualities of a truly capable king.
And because he was such an attractive man, I could even understand why Buyeon Yuhwa suddenly grew jealous of me, who received all his attention, and wished to kill me.
The wind picked up again, quite strongly. As the folds of my chima fluttered and flared in the wind, the king, who had been standing still, moved forward.
“It’s getting cold, so go back inside.”
Then he walked closer while keeping a certain distance from me. But he wasn’t coming forward to stand before me; he was walking to leave this place.
As he came closer with each step, my heart raced, yet the king passed quietly by my side without so much as brushing the hem of my clothes.
For a moment, I turned without thinking, just to watch his retreating figure. Even after seeing me again after so long, he showed no lingering attachment — not even if it tore him apart inside.
Seeing him like that, why did I feel the urge to gently grasp the hem of his robe, fluttering like my chima?
But—
Stagger!
While watching the king’s retreating figure, a sudden dizziness washed over me. My body had fully recovered, so it wasn’t from the blood I had lost. At first, I thought it was just a brief light-headedness from weakness, but soon cold sweat poured down, and my legs wobbled, quivering as I struggled to stand.
Though I had gone without sleep for days on end, I had never staggered like this before. In the end, bracing my knees with all my strength to keep me from collapsing, I stumbled so noisily that even the rustle of my clothes made the king turn back.
“Yewon!”
The moment the king saw me swaying precariously, he called my name and ran toward me.
The hem I had longed to grasp came into view, together with his rushing figure, as if in slow motion. But before I could take in even that sight, my eyes clamped shut.
The soles of my feet felt damp, as if soaked in rain.
・・・・・
The physician shook his head with a grave expression.
Sahwa was helping, sparing no expense on medicine and treatment, but in a world where medical knowledge was still undeveloped, there was no chance that the disease would improve. In fact, there was no way to cure it.
It was commonly regarded as a fatal disease — once afflicted with it, death was inevitable. All they could do was administer medicines to slow its progress.
The physician’s grim expression made Sahwa’s face darken as well.
He had assumed that simply detecting the illness would make recovery possible, never imagining that it was an incurable, dreadful disease.
Yet Hunmu remained calm. His father had also succumbed to this cruel, incurable disease. With the blood of his great-grandfather from a foreign world flowing through him, he believed he could not escape it either.
Sahwa looked at Hunmu’s composed face and signalled the physician to leave. Seeing that the morning decoction he had prepared for him remained untouched, he furrowed his brow and let out a sigh.
“That physician is utterly incompetent. I’ll help you find another, so don’t worry. But why haven’t you taken the decoction?”
“Don’t waste your effort and just go. This is the same disease my father could not overcome, and I cannot escape it either.”
He had never resented his great-grandfather, whom he had never even seen, but he vividly remembered, even from childhood, how painfully his father had suffered. His mother spent every night in tears, watching him cough up blood.
At first, he never imagined that he would fall ill with such a disease himself. How many months had his father’s condition lasted? However, by chance, Hunmu overheard the conversation of the women preparing the herbal medicine, and gradually, layer by layer, he began to release his lingering attachments to life.
“It’s a dreadful disease. Generation after generation, one after another, they all die young…”
“Tsk tsk, that’s how it is. What use is brilliance when one is born with this disease?”
"Even young Master Hunmu..."
“Shh! Watch your words.”
It was unexpected that the disease struck ten years earlier than it had with his father, but he felt no lingering attachment to life. He didn’t know why this disease kept appearing, but it seemed as if, ever since his great-grandfather had suddenly fallen into a strange world with a sickly body, it had been passed down through the generations. In any case, since he had no children, he would be the last to suffer from it.
It might even be better to end his life before the pain worsens, but every time he thought that, the woman named Yewon stuck in his mind like a thorn. Not that he could ever have acted on it, though.
Aware that General Hunmu’s father had died young from a cruel disease, Sahwa stopped offering empty words of comfort and simply sank down beside him.
Even without a single comforting word, Sahwa knew he was in pain and visited every few days. He wasn’t naturally a sentimental person, yet he continued to come because he had been Hunmu’s close childhood friend, just as Hunmu had been a close friend of the king from childhood.
“If I die, since I have no children, you may take this house. There should be a few things here of some value as well.”
“Why would I? After you die, your spirit will linger here. How could anyone possibly sleep at night? I have no desire to take it.”
“Do as you see fit. Once I die, this place will be empty, except for the small sum of money left for the servants.”
“That’s why you should’ve hurried to get married. You turned down every match that came along — what a mess this is.”
“Marriage? For someone destined to die young? You, on the other hand, should hurry and get married before it’s too late.”
“I still have many things to do. I need to study the items that the woman Yewon brought as well.”
“...”
“You’re probably curious about that woman, but since there’s nothing particularly pleasant to report, I won’t tell you.”
“Has she recovered?”
“I heard she got up. Though she collapsed again.”
“What?”
“She had fully regained her strength, but for some reason, she suddenly collapsed again. The king was the first to find her.”
The fact that the king was the first to find her meant that the two of them had been together. Hunmu quietly asked, wondering whether the king had pushed her cruelly, even though she hadn’t yet fully regained her strength.
He thought that the man, having grown cruel, would eventually return, but there were still wounds in his heart that remained far too deep to heal.
“Don’t worry about that woman. Just make sure you take your medicinal tonics on time. She’ll blame herself if anything happens to you.”
“What are you talking about? How could my death be that woman’s fault?”
“What a fool. How would that woman know about your illness? If she suddenly hears that you died, she would think the punishment aggravated the wound and caused your death.”
“Don’t talk nonsense. If I die, tell that woman it has nothing to do with her.”
Swish.
Sahwa, who had been sitting, suddenly stood up and placed the untouched morning medicinal tonic beside him.
“I’ll say it again — why would I? I have no intention of taking your house, nor would I ever tell that woman about your illness. If you die, it will be said that your condition worsened after receiving the Gakseok.”
“What?”
“So either get better, or at least take your decoction properly to slow it down. It’s up to you to handle it yourself.”
Translator's Corner:
Hi everyone~ I hope you all enjoyed the updates. It’s been quite the emotional rollercoaster! We’re nearing the end of this short novel, where my translations should be finished in 2–3 weeks at the latest. I’ll be working on those final chapters next week and will post them then, so see you all soon! >^<
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