・・・・・
The ties of my clothes loosened. After the flickering candle burned out, night settled in.
The king’s hands, touching me after such a long time, were cautious. When my eyes finally adjusted to the darkness and I saw him again, his gaze remained just as careful.
He couldn’t push away the hand I had first extended, and instead drew me into his arms, holding my slightly trembling shoulders and feeling their warmth for a brief moment.
As if applying salve to the raw wounds he had exposed, he held me close, inhaled, and then let out a breath.
Driven by the emotions that welled up from my heart, I moved my hands that had been resting still and embraced him.
'Poor soul.'
When I realised that he, who had seemed nothing but frightening and strong, was pitiable, my hands moved before my reason could stop it.
When my hands touched his back, the king flinched and froze, then lifted his head and met my gaze.
I didn’t know what expression I wore as I looked at him, but when our eyes met, I felt something I had never felt before — a shared emotion, a sense of our hearts connecting. That realisation sent shivers from the tips of my toes all the way up. It was far more intense than the feelings I had occasionally experienced in the past.
The king’s lips softly meet mine.
Our soft tongues intertwined, and the hands that touched my body, revealed through loosened clothing, moved deliberately, never hastily.
The tongue that had touched my lips traced down my neck, gliding along my collarbone, and paused at my chest. Gently teasing my still-shy breasts, the king took them softly between his lips and rested his hands on my ribs, which showed with each breath where my flesh had grown slightly thinner.
Suck.
“Haa….”
A faint gasp escaped at the skilled movements of his tongue, which gently sucked on my nipples. Considering how rough the last night had been, and that I had attempted suicide afterwards, it was a night neither of us could ever forget.
As if atoning for that night, the king spent a long while sucking my breasts and pressing unceasing kisses all over my body, paying careful attention to each touch.
His gaze occasionally fell on the arm covered with cloth, then drifted away, as if trying to erase that night completely.
The tongue that had touched my navel naturally slid between my pressed thighs, parting them and pulling down my underwear.
Slurp
“Haa….”
His tongue lingered against the tightly pressed folds, moving soothingly as he took my clitoris into his mouth like a nipple. The dry, parched flesh gradually became moistened with each deliberate motion of his tongue.
Even though I had been the one to reach for him first, and past nights hadn’t easily aroused me, I responded slowly to his tongue, which carefully and gently lavished attention on my tender flesh.
Slurp
Slurp
“Ha.”
As my breath came in ragged gasps, a shiver ran through me from the continuous stimulation of my clitoris. When my shoulders twitched slightly in response, the king slid a single finger inside me, gently and carefully, lifting my body upright without causing pain.
For a brief moment, fear of what was about to happen surged. My body tensed on its own again, stiffening in response to the memory of his relentless insistence to thrust into me no matter what.
Seeing me momentarily freeze, he withdrew his finger and shook his head.
“If you’re afraid, I won’t proceed.”
The king's assurance that he wouldn't continue if I was still afraid, even after taking the time to fully wet my body, helped ease some of the tension in my stiffened body.
And, just as before, as when I first held onto the king, I wrapped my hands around his neck.
I couldn’t bring myself to say I was all right, but simply not loosening my hands from around his neck let me feel the king’s heart pounding.
As a part of his hardened body brushed against the damp folds of my flesh, poised to enter, I drew in a deep breath and released it, afraid I might recoil again.
“Heub!”
After countless twists and turns, our bodies finally came together.
The hand I first offered to the man who had always seemed so distant.
How could I even explain spending this moment now, on the day I dreamed of that old woman telling me I would return
As his penis began to enter slowly, my thighs tightened instinctively, and I clenched my teeth. There was no pain like the first time, but after so long, my insides reacted sensitively to the sensation of penetration, and I could clearly feel myself spreading.
Noticing my reaction, the king paused his movement for a moment, then took my swollen nipple back into his mouth, licking it soothingly as he adjusted the rhythm.
Slide.
“Hangh….”
Bit by bit, his penis gradually entered until, at last, it was fully in.
As my head tilted back far enough to bare my neck, the king, who had been pressing his lips there, did not thrust right away but softly caressed my cheek. Only after my breathing fell into a steady rhythm did he slowly begin to move his hips.
Slide.
Fwop.
“Heub!”
“Does it hurt?”
I shook my head.
Even so, he never moved quickly; instead, he thrust with care, intent on letting me feel as much as possible rather than seeking his own pleasure, and then kissed me again.
“Hnngh… ha.”
When our lips parted, an even more delicate moan escaped than before.
Fwop.
“Ngh… ha.”
Fwop.
“Hangh.”
Shlick, shlick
“Ngh!”
Shlick, shlick
“Hng… aheug.”
I tried to cover my mouth with the back of my hand, but when the king’s fingers rubbed my clitoris as he thrust, I could no longer suppress the sound, and my toes curled.
Unlike the rough encounters of the past that had offered no pleasure, now, with the king’s intent, my body experienced intermittent waves of pleasure tinged with shivers.
Even though I was embarrassed, the continuous stroking of my clitoris made my toes curl and tense.
“Haa… ahng…”
The prodding sensations of his penis now rapidly stimulated the nerves in my body, driving me toward an orgasm.
Before I knew it, the pleasure spreading dangerously through my body made me wrap my arms around the king’s neck again. This time, unlike before, his thrusts quickened, his pelvis pressing flush against me without a single gap.
Even without any stimulation from the king’s hands, the friction of his pubic hair against my clitoris made me feel as if I could reach an orgasm at any moment.
Before I knew it, as I wrapped my arms around his neck, the wound on my wrist that I had once bound tightly was exposed again — but there was no time to look. My eyes squeezed shut at the king’s roughened thrusts.
Even though I had seized his hand out of pity and heartache, I could never have felt this way unless I, too, had opened my heart.
“!”
I didn’t want to admit it, but my defenceless, unguarded heart was laid bare in the orgasm that soon overwhelmed me.
As the intense, head-thudding pleasure hit me, I gasped and held the king tightly, the wound on my arm pressing into his neck and sending a sharp pang of pain.
But the orgasm didn’t end easily; it pulsed through me like vibrations, and I clung to him even tighter.
・・・・・
It was my first outing since meeting the elderly woman with General Hunmu. The king accompanied me on this outing.
Only the minimum number of attendants were allowed to follow from a distance, and the place we arrived at was a beautiful spot lined with maple trees dyed red in the autumn weather. As if meticulously arranged, each tree stood perfectly in place, and the sunlight fell just right on the luxuriant leaves, creating a view as breathtaking as the fabled paradises often called Mureungdowon. [1]
When I sat on the broad, flat rock at the spot the attendants had prepared, the king checked once again to see if I was comfortable.
Perhaps because this outing came after the night I reached out my hand to him as if under a spell, everything felt surreal and almost like a dream.
"The autumn leaves are at their peak, so I thought you’d like to come out and see them. Do they please you?”
He still seemed to find it difficult to speak to me without reserve, but after a pause, he finally spoke up.
When I simply nodded in response instead of answering, he glanced around, then plucked a beautifully red autumn leaf, poised to fall at any moment, and handed it to me.
As I quietly gazed at the autumn leaf, I felt as though the hellish, fiery times I had endured with him were fading, leaving behind only their colour.
“Shall I tell you the meaning of my name?”
“Pardon?”
“I mean the meaning of ‘Neuru.’”
I had thought it was an unusual name, but did it hold a special meaning?
As I quietly watched, the king gently took my hand, which was holding the maple leaf. Yet he didn’t meet my eyes, instead gazing at the sunlight streaming through the leaves.
“It means not to rush everything at once, but to last for a long time.”
Not to rush everything at once.
To last a long time.
“I will approach you in the same way.”
The king, who had been gazing at the sunlight, turned his head toward me. Perhaps because of the sparkling light, the colour of his pupils, which had seemed so dark, now shimmered faintly.
The king slowly let go of the hand he was holding and stood up.
Apart from the occasional chirping of birds, the forest was so quiet that I wished I could store it deep in my memory and take it out whenever I felt weary. But since he seemed bothered by my silence, I couldn’t keep these feelings to myself and finally spoke.
“There’s something called a time capsule.”
“A time capsule?”
“It’s when you bury something in the ground that you want to remember or revisit later, and then dig it up again after a long time has passed.”
"Why go to the trouble of burying it in the ground?"
“I’m not sure. I think it’s so that, after forgetting about it for a long time, you can take it out and remember. It reminded me of when I once buried a time capsule in a place like this long ago with some friends.”
The king listened to my words and seemed to ponder them carefully, then reached out his hand to me as I sat there.
“Shall we make one too?”
“Pardon?”
“I mean that time capsule. So that you and I can come back here someday and reminisce.”
In this unfamiliar world, there was nothing I could put into a time capsule. Yet I couldn’t refuse his offer to do what I had said, so I rose from where I had been sitting
“Do we need to decide on a place to bury it?”
“We need to mark it so we can find it later…”
Upon hearing my words, the king picked up a sharp-edged stone and went to a large tree. Then he began to carve a deep scratch into the trunk.
He was engraving a Chinese character, the character for ‘cherish’ [懷]. [2] An eunuch who had been standing at a distance was about to rush over in alarm, seeing the king holding the stone and carving the character himself. But the king simply raised his hand and finished engraving it on his own.
“This should be enough so I won’t forget.”
He seemed to contemplate what to put in the time capsule beneath the tree engraved with the Chinese character for ‘cherish’.
“What do most people bury?”
“Some people put letters to themselves, while others include objects that hold special memories.”
“What would you like to put in it?”
Since I, too, had suddenly come to bury a time capsule, nothing immediately came to mind. Hesitating to answer, I watched as he reached into the end of his sleeve and pulled out something wrapped in soft silk.
"This is what I will bury."
He said that, but didn’t show me what it was. Then, telling me to think about it while he dug, he summoned an eunuch and instructed him to bring something suitable for digging a pit.
It was unusual enough that he had carved the character into the tree himself, but seeing the eunuch, bewildered by the king’s sudden order, was equally startling for me.
Even now, the sight of the king digging a pit himself was utterly surreal.
The very king of a nation digging the ground at my suggestion to bury a time capsule. It was easy to picture how his eunuchs would be aghast at the dirt on his hands. Yet, seeing him in this simple, unguarded moment brought me an unexpected sense of peace.
“I don’t have anything worth burying yet, so I’ll come back later to bury something.”
Since I had only just barely managed to get dressed before going out, the king glanced me over and nodded. Then, taking the piece of silk from his sleeve, he buried it in the ground and carefully smoothed the soil over it.
“How long should we wait before retrieving it?”
“That depends on the person; it’s up to you to decide.”
The king stood, brushing the soil from his hands. Then he spoke subtly about why he hadn’t shown me what it was.
“What I buried here, we’ll come back to find it together once you’ve opened your heart to me completely.”
The object wrapped in silk didn’t look particularly large at first glance. Though I was somewhat curious, I simply nodded.
The moment when I fully opened my heart to him — when would that be?
The maple tree, its leaves dyed crimson, held a secret object and, marked with the character '懷,' fell silent once more.
“So, we now have a secret that only you and I know.”
Perhaps pleased to have a secret known only to the two of us, the king spoke in a rather bright tone. Bathed in sunlight, his expression looked even better than when we had first arrived. His face was genuinely radiant, without a trace of shadow.
Stagger!
It wasn’t as if I had overexerted myself just by being in the king’s arms recently. I hadn’t missed any meals either; in fact, I had been taking the medicinal tonic the king gave me every morning and evening. Yet, in that moment, as I looked at him, a wave of dizziness hit me so strongly that my legs nearly gave way.
I staggered backward, pressing a hand to my head, and the king’s once-bright expression darkened in an instant as he reached out toward me.
Feeling momentarily steadier, I raised a hand to signal that I was fine and braced my legs to stay upright.
For a moment, I recalled the words of the old woman from the unsettling dream, but I dismissed them, thinking my dizziness might just be from going out after such a long time.
But no sooner had I thought that than a violent dizziness swept over my vision, and I collapsed right there.
・・・・・
Lately, Yewon had been collapsing with troubling frequency. Even when the king pressed the royal physician, no illness could be named, and her pulse revealed no source of illness. Watching her lie there, the king’s face grew ever darker.
He wondered if the medicinal tonic might not suit her, but the physician, knowing a single mistake could cost him his life, would never have prescribed anything harmful.
“Where does it hurt that you’re like this?”
This woman, who had come from a place utterly foreign to him, had burrowed into his life like warmth harder to find than the eye of a needle.
The king, who had once been cruel even to General Hunmu, his childhood friend, was now completely shaken to his core by this woman. Yet now, with his heart changed, all he felt was heartache. As he gazed at Yewon, lying so still as if asleep, he gently caressed her cheek.
Though he knew he might not be able to bear the consequences of his actions, seeing her reach out first, Neuru resolved: even if the whole world turned its back on him, he would win this woman’s heart.
Yet the inexplicable fainting spells continued after that, and each time she woke, her expression was so complex that he couldn’t bring himself to ask what was wrong.
After a couple of hours, she finally opened her eyes. She seemed surprised to realise she had collapsed again, but quickly regained her composure. Seeing the king’s sombre face beside her, she silently lifted the corners of her mouth. Presumably to let him know she was alright, yet the moment Neuru saw that expression, he pressed his lips to hers like an anxious child.
Her soft lips, the warmth of her presence, and the emotions swelling so fiercely that he wished he could bear her pain himself. The king, weighed down by guilt and believing her frequent collapses were his fault, remained grim even after their lips parted.
“It seems I’m dizzy from the change of seasons. Don’t worry, I’m not in any pain.”
Yewon spoke as if to reassure the sombre king, but Neuru sensed something unspoken in her eyes. Yet he neither wanted to press her nor force himself to know, so he simply nodded in silence.
“Don’t be in pain. When you hurt, I hurt just as deeply.”
At the king’s words, Yewon rose hesitantly. Perhaps it was the sincerity she sensed in his expression, but the fear she once felt toward the tyrant in him was gone. In its place settled uneasy, tender, aching feelings.
"If I were to…”
She parted her lips as if those emotions had suddenly become too heavy, but soon trailed off and closed them again.
Because she knew he stayed by her side whenever she collapsed, unable even to properly attend to state affairs, she couldn’t bring herself to speak words she wasn’t sure of.
Instead, she now held the king’s hand, which had been at her side for hours, without any difficulty. The moment she did, Neuru drew Yewon into his arms, afraid that the warmth of his hand might overwhelm her, and spoke the words he had never dared to voice.
“I will stay by your side for life. I will cherish and care for you, so don’t be in pain.”
Yewon did not respond.
Translator's Corner:
[1] In this context, it's referring to "Mureungdowon" (무릉도원), a Korean term for a utopia: an idealised, peaceful and beautiful place that people dream of. The concept originates from the Chinese fable: "Peach Blossom Spring."
[2] 懷 [huai] means to carry in the bosom, mind, or heart; to embrace, cherish; the bosom.
The Korean equivalent is 회 [hoe]. Source: https://www.wisdomlib.org/definition/huai
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