3A\N: I'm sorry for the wait. I actually thought I had uploaded this chapter already...
The King was a sad man.
Of course, it took a while for Seol to notice that, her juvenile mind too lost in fantasies and daydreams, tales her father used to tell her before she went to sleep. But when she began to understand how people worked and how memories and feelings influenced their actions and behavior, she also understood that the king always carried sorrow deep down on his chest.
Now, she only wanted to know why. Even though she probably never would
There was no way she could ask why though. While Seol wanted to know and understand her favorite uncle more, there was a line her mother taught her to respect, and deep sorrows were behind it.
So, whenever she visited the palace and went with her father and/or her mother to have a meal with the king, she observed carefully. She kept her eyes open and her ears attentive, so she could grasp something to solve her biggest mystery.
But then they would say goodbye to the king, as he was to busy to spend an entire afternoon with them, and her research would be postponed.
And that's why she was where she was now. Whatever there was.
Seol was just walking by the side of the Dongji lake, when she decided to go a little further than she used to. And a few minutes later she found it.
Her mother would definitely scold her later, her father would be worrying like crazy. But instead of going back before it was too late, she decided to investigate the ruins of an abandoned building.
The doors were blocked, so she walked around it and tiptoeing to see past the cracks on the windows until she found a spot wide enough for her to sneak in. But before she could walk in any further, a voice called out behind her.
"I'm sure there are better places to visit in the palace," Seol hears him saying and jumps in surprise, "That are not an abandoned building."
She looks around, trying to find the owner of the voice, searching in every direction before she notices him, standing outside the wall separating the building from the lake, staring at her through and old threshold.
"Pyeha," she shrieks in joy and runs to the opening, looking up at him happily, "What are you doing here?"
"Ei, is that any way to speak to a king?" Gwangjong's voice is severe as he admonishes her behaviour, and Seol laughs at how alike to her mother he sounds.
Then she proceeds to bow and properly greet the King, speaking in a submissive tone, just like she was taught, "What brings you to this humble place, Pyeha?"
"Much better," the King grunts in satisfaction, his scary king face fading, and he smiles at her, "But you still shouldn't ask that to owner of the house you're visiting."
"I just thought no one came here anymore," Seol shrugs, looking behind her to the almost crumbling building, the signs of abandonment showed that it was a forgotten place for everyone else in the palace.
"I'm the only one that comes here," he explains to her, and she turns to see that he is also observing the old construction, "The only one but you now."
That wouldn't do. Seol knew the palace had many beautiful spots that attracted visitors and residents, but that hidden part of the lake should also be valorized. That way, the King and her wouldn't be the only people who came to the old building.
"Why don't you reform it? That way people might come."
"I don't want people to come."
"Oh."
Seol's eyes bulge and she attempts and fails to hide her disappointment, hoping that he's not mad at her for roaming around his property like that. But then he sees her fidgety expression and scoffs.
"I open a few exceptions from time to time," the King says softly and she smiles excited, "You can explore it however you want, just be careful."
"Sure. But, Pyeha," Seol asks before she runs back to resume her investigation of the place, "Why do you come here if there's nothing left?"
Her uncle's smile changes, as his eyes fill with what Seol now knows it's called nostalgia, and his voice has a different tone when he speaks, "For the memories."
She approaches him carefully, crossing the wooden supports of what was once a door and stepping to the outside of the ruins, standing next to him and looking up to his eyes, trying to decipher his words.
"Good memories or bad memories?"
The question seems to taker her uncle by surprise, as he blinks and looks up, frowning in the distance as he thinks about it for a second. Then he takes a deep breath and sighs.
"They are happy memories, so they are good," he answers, making a pause between the words, as if he's still trying to understand how he feels about them, "But they are from a time and a person that will not return, so they are bad."
Seol continues to look at her uncle, and for the first time in her life she sees a bit of resemblance of the man with her father. They both look the same when they talk about the past. The King even made the same expression her father did whenever he talked about his deceased brothers, and she recognizes the desire to go back in time for a glimpse of lost loved ones.
There are no words of comfort that Seol can say to him about dead people, so she says things about things she understands. And she understands what is like to have memories.
"Shouldn't be a treasured memory of someone who passed away a good thing?" Her question makes the King turn his eyes to her, and she shudders under his pointed gaze as she explains what she meant, "Because even though you are sad, you have something happy to live with. It would be way too worse to lose someone and remember nothing of them."
The King's smile returns, and she's glad she was able to lift his spirits up a little.
"You are very wise for a young child," he says, and she shrugs.
"It's just because I thought about that a lot." Now it's Seol's time to look away as she reveals her most inner self, "I never met my mother, so we never created any memories together. And if I could have at least one piece of her with me, maybe I could think of her differently. She wouldn't be just a woman who gave me birth, she would be someone I could think about whenever I felt alone."
She didn't mean to make him awkward or tense, but he remains silent after she finishes talking. But when Seol looks to him again, she finds him staring off at the distance, and he smiles bitterly, as if he's seeing something else that's not the lake.
"I guess that, after we're dead, we only live in the memories of the ones we left behind."
Then he gets that look.
That look of an emotion that's deeper than sorrow and crueler than despair. A feeling that lasts more than a person's life and craves in the heart, refusing to be erased. The kind of aftermath that those that had a great loss can fully understand.
But she knows better than to ask and pry. Seol's not old enough to understand what kind of pain a grown adult like her uncle carries around, but she's old enough to know that people don't like to talk about them.
She doesn't try to satisfy her curiosity, and swallows all the questions her mind just formulated, so she doesn't hurt him even more.
Instead, she shares something about herself.
"I'm almost sure that my father is not my father."
That makes the King choke and stutter, as he turns around to face her properly, his face now showing that his mind is back to the reality, his voice showing how much he's actually shocked, despite his attempt to look natural.
"What makes you think that?"
"Well, he's as loving as always, but sometimes I see guilt in him. Like he feels he shouldn't have my affection. Like it shouldn't be his but someone else's," as she explains her reasons, her mind goes back to her last birthday, when she hug him and proclaimed him the best father in the world, "I used to think that it was because my mother died, but the fact that he basically keeps me a secret from the outside world doesn't ease my suspicions. He's too honest, he can't bring himself to pretend and to lie for too long."
Part of her wishes that the King would chastise her for thinking such things about his brother. He's the first person she tells her most secret fear and worry, and even though he's always nice and open around her, that doesn't mean he'll tolerate her bad behaviour.
But the scolding never comes, and he only takes a deep breath before speaking again.
"Does he know you're thinking that?" His tone is grave and serious, and she's glad for it. Most people would laugh at her theory, mark it as an unfounded fear of a child. She's relieved for not being reprimanded nor refuted.
"I could still be wrong. And I don't want to do something that would hurt him." Seol sighs in a mix of sadness and frustration, and then she remembers her confidant is her father's eldest brother, and an old acquaintance of her mother, so she decides to investigate a little further, "Would you know anything about that?"
The King looks pained for a second, but he shakes his head in denial, his eyes cast down in what she can only classify as apologetical.
"I only met you when you were six years old," he explains, hoping to justify his lack of information for her, "And I last saw your mother when she was still single."
Seol knew that already. It was the only thing he always said whenever she made him a question about her birth mother. But most times he could also add some piece of the frame she tried to build in the mind about the woman who gave her life. Now Seol is at a dead-end, but this time she can't find any leads about her biological father.
"I wish I could talk to her somehow. That way she could tell me who's my real father. And if I'm right and it's not Abeoji, then why did he raise me?"
Her uncle doesn't have an answer for that, so he only stares at her with inquisitive eyes.
"If you were right," he asks carefully, as if he treading in a dangerous soil, "Would anything change?"
The question is not hard to answer at all, as Seol has been thinking about that possibility for a long time.
"Of course!" She shrieks happily, "I would have two fathers, then."
Her conclusion seems to please the king, since his smile looks genuine this time and he ruffles her hair affectionately. Seol's is so happy to see him at ease again.
"Don't let him know you're thinking such things," the scolding finally comes, but just like when he reprimanded her for not greeting him properly, she knows he's not actually mad, "And if you consider him your father already, it shouldn't matter if he truly is or not."
"But it does," she retorts, as if begging him to understand that part of her as well, "Because it's a part of me."
"Don't you think that if you don't have the memories, you won't hurt?"
"Don't you think if I don't have the memories, I'll have nothing at all?"
He looks puzzled, then baffled. She wonders if she said anything wrong, but then he scoffs and laughs, and she smiles brightly.
"I can't even begin to understand your logic, so I won't even try to come up with a retort."
She laughs back at him and he chuckles, influenced by her. But then her smile fades as another worry settles down on her mind.
"Please don't tell him," Seol implores breathless, as the thought of her father knowing about what she said hurts her even more than not knowing anything about her mother.
"Don't worry, I won't," his voice is gentle, but firm, and she knows she can trust his word, "But if you don't go back soon, he'll mobilize the royal guards to find you."
That's when she realizes that it's been quite a while since she arrived at the old building. And yes, her, sometimes overbearing, father would most likely find guards to search for her if she spent too much time out of his view while they visited the palace.
Then she sprints and starts to run away, following the same path that had brought her there, and going back to the side of her mother and her siblings. But before she can rush outside of the walls of the building, she goes back to the man still staring at the lake.
"Pyeha," she calls out and he turns around to see what she wants, "If Abeoji turns out to be not my father, will you stop being my uncle?"
Will anything change for us?
Seol doesn't have to say everything that's on her head, though. He knows what she means even if never says it out loud.
"A king does not change his heart so easily," he answers in the regal and authoritarian tone, speaking as if that was a foolish question with an obvious answer, "I'll be whatever you need me to be."
She doesn't believe her smile could ever be any bigger than it is right now, and she beams before making one last remark, "That's why I like you the best."
"Don't let Baek Ah hear that."
"The truth is the truth."
Seol is still smiling as she leaves, but her laughter dies as the wind hits her face. Her heart starts to feel heavy, and her sprint gradually becomes a walk as she lets her worried thoughts take over her mind.
The king has anything a man could want, except for one thing. Except for the one thing he craved the most.
The king was a sad man who just wanted love.
Myrka Crdenas Garzn: Seguiré até un cierto momento - or, debo dicer, una cierta edad. Seó que nesse capítulo la conversa de So con Seol no tibe mucha cosa sobre Soo, pero la niña eres muy pequeña ainda. Gracias por leer e comentar. :D
