YCHW Ch 70

Facing Hwi quickly became tiring. Because he had to constantly observe and interpret his gaze, his expression, and even guess at his intentions. As he was looking back on when it had become like this, the dandelion seeds rose again as if creating a wind and threw themselves out the window, every single one of them.

Hwi walked slowly to the window and closed it himself. The sunlight weakened, and the room, unlit by candles, became somewhat dim.

“Do you like women?”

At the question he tossed out softly as he turned around, Yoonso could only be dumbfounded.

“You were smiling so brightly.”

Is he trying to control even my smiling now? Do I like women? For a man who keeps a string of concubines, he really has some nerve.

“Even if I said I do, what could I do?”

Yoonso retorted coldly. As if his likes and dislikes mattered in this imperial palace. When he couldn’t do anything as he pleased, and could never get his hands on what he wanted.

“If you could, you would?”

Hwi, taking a large step closer, had eyes that grew sharp like a well-honed sword. The instantaneous aura of intimidation pressed down on Yoonso, but the more it did, the more Yoonso held his neck up straight.

“Isn’t Your Majesty the one who can do as he pleases? How could I possibly catch up to Your Majesty, who embraces not only women but men as well?”

“Do they bother you?”

When Hwi’s face softened for a moment, he became even more flabbergasted. The anger that had been simmering all this time, unable to escape, crushed his reason and rose to the top of his head.

“They…”

“No. It is a blessing to me that they are by Your Majesty’s side. So there is no need to come so often. I will focus on fulfilling only my duties, so please give your favor to them, and I hope we can each fulfill our roles in our respective places.”

“There will never be a time when I desire another over you.”

“How can the Son of Heaven be concerned with the feelings of a mere Yeongchunhwa? You do not have to do so, and I will give you my guardian star as much as you want, so please desire to your heart’s content.”

His poison-laced tongue ran wild. Yoonso, consumed by his own anger, reached a point where he just wanted to end everything right there. He no longer wanted to be caught up in the pain of trying to figure out and doubting his true feelings. It seemed it would be easier if only duty and state affairs remained in this relationship.

A vein bulged on the jaw of Hwi, who had been silently watching Yoonso, then slowly subsided. He dropped his head, then raised it with a crooked smile.

“Shall I tell you the foremost duty you must realize?”

Hwi took another large step closer, and the distance between the two of them narrowed. His eyes glinted coldly, ensnaring Yoonso.

“Your duty is to accept me. To approach me first and be held in my arms with joy.”

“If you but give the command, what could I not do?”

The sharp light that had been crossing his dark eyes soon settled into stillness. Facing Hwi’s pupils, which had deepened in color, Yoonso discovered the contradiction hidden within himself.

While thinking he wanted to just end it, he also wanted to confirm it. He wanted to scratch and stab Hwi to see if he bled too. It felt as if his wound would prove his sincerity. That feeling circled back and cut Yoonso’s own affection.

How could this feeling be called pure love? Yoonso, with an empty breath, spewed out the true feelings he had suppressed and trampled on.

“Was it the truth when you said I was your first? Have you ever shown me your true feelings since we met?”

“If I said yes, would you believe me?”

“No! I cannot believe you! Because you deceived me the entire time we were together!”

Tears suddenly welled up. Yoonso finally realized that he had been standing in the same place all along. That since first facing the truth in that seaside village home, since facing his deception, he had not been able to move forward one bit.

“Is there anything left between us? Where in the world is the man I loved?”

“…”

“You surely had several chances to confess. You were the one who threw them away, Your Majesty.”

Hwi’s Adam’s apple bobbed up and down 크게, as if he were swallowing countless words. Hwi’s eyes, staring at Yoonso, became even darker and more desolate, like a night sky covered in dark clouds. He briefly looked away before fixing his gaze on Yoonso and tilting his head.

“Actually, I am curious too.”

“…”

“If I had revealed the whole truth, what would you have done?”

The unexpected question struck deep into his core. Yoonso, momentarily at a loss for words, had eyes that wavered in confusion.

If Hwi had confessed the truth before the wedding, or if he had told me everything without concealment that night…

It was the moment Yoonso’s lips were about to part. Hwi, moving with a large stride, approached right in front of him, grabbed Yoonso’s chin, and gently pressed his lower lip with his thumb.

“Do not answer. I do not want to know.”

It was an attitude that had already decided his own answer. It was closer to acceptance than resignation, and Yoonso wanted to shatter his prejudgment with something, but he could not find the words.

Hwi’s gaze traveled over every corner of Yoonso’s face. He hated himself for being so desperate to classify and name each and every emotion contained in those eyes. It was when Yoonso was avoiding his gaze, as if lowering his eyelids.

“Was your promise to love me no matter who I was a lie?”

Even the breath escaping between his lips froze. Yoonso, unable to believe that Hwi had mentioned the promise from that day, trembled slightly and raised his eyes.

With a dry and desolate face, like a barren ruin where no sunlight ever reached, the man asked.

“Are Do Hwi and I different people in your heart? Must it be the Do Hwi who knows neither your real name nor the truth that you are a Yeongchunhwa?”

Ha. Yoonso let out a hollow breath. Hwi’s question sounded like a rebuke, saying that he, too, had not revealed the truth until the end. Yes, he too had hidden his name and the fact that he was a Yeongchunhwa until the end. He had not been able to be honest even in front of the one he loved, so that was his undeniable fault and selfishness.

But would he know? The reason why he had done so.

“Yes. Because, you see, I never wanted to be a Yeongchunhwa in front of you, not for a single moment.”

That promise was a heart laid completely bare at the moment he was happiest and most fulfilled. And it was he who had shattered it in an instant as soon as the sun rose.

Did it really have to be that way?

Would he have even looked at me if I hadn’t been a Yeongchunhwa?

Both he and himself had built their affection on a foundation of lies from the beginning, so perhaps it was only natural for it to crumble as futilely as a sandcastle. Yoonso, unable to bear the flowing sorrow and anger, trembled at the corners of his mouth and glared at Hwi.

No more thoughts came to him. He just wanted to hurt the man standing calmly before him, who so easily concealed any emotion. Only to hurt him.

“Regrettably, it seems my heart was conditional. If I had known everything, would I have truly loved you?”

The corner of Hwi’s eye twitched. But Yoonso wanted more. Frustration and pain, tears. And thus, a desperate token that could prove love.

“All of it… I regret it.”

As he himself denied the time he had cherished so dearly, a sharp, burning pain, as if his heart were being minced by a sharp sword, washed over Yoonso. A regret that he wanted to take back the words he had spoken flashed through him, but nothing could be undone anymore.

Hwi gently stroked Yoonso’s lower lip. The blue veins on the back of his hand stood out more roughly and clearly than ever before, but his touch was endlessly soft and careful.

He couldn’t tell if his pounding heartbeat stemmed from fear or excitement. Remembering the rough, desperate kiss that had been enough to steal his breath away, Yoonso curled his fingers into a fist.

“Now I see… it seems your dagger was pointed both ways.”

Hwi raised the finger that had been stroking his lips and caught a tear that was trickling down from the corner of Yoonso’s eye.

“Yes. It is fine to stab me. But do not harm yourself.”

Hwi, after carefully wiping away the moisture, took his hand away and stepped back. He locked eyes with Yoonso in silence for a while before turning his body.

After Hwi left, the door soon opened and Yeondeok came in, holding a bowl.

“Uh… Your Majesty. He brought some rice cakes for you to eat…”

Yeondeok, gauging the atmosphere in the room, placed the bowl on the table. Inside the bowl, rice cakes decorated with flowers were beautifully arranged, shaped like animals. Yoonso, with his reddened eyes, looked at them and then sank to the floor.

“Heueu…”

The sobs he had been holding back and holding back burst forth. Yoonso wiped his eyes with his hands and wept quietly.

For the dagger to be pointed both ways must mean that he too was stabbed.

A few words like, ‘I’m sorry,’ ‘I couldn’t help it,’ ‘I love you too,’ might have been enough to forgive his deceptions up to now and the time that had vanished like a mirage, but Hwi, who refused to give him a reason to the very end, was heartless and cruel.

But to hate Hwi without end, he found himself repeatedly understanding and pitying him. Because whenever this palace felt too vast and desolate, whenever he felt lonely because of it, whenever duty and responsibility weighed down on his shoulders, whenever he wanted to throw everything away and run, he would be reminded of him, who must have endured all this alone.

The gaze that looked as if he were left all alone even at his happiest moment, the words he had swallowed without being able to utter them after parting his lips several times, the conflict and agony. And so, the love.

No matter how much he tried to deny it, he could not deny that he had held him in his heart since some point, still, and always, and that it was absolutely not a pretense. Because affection was something that reached you. Without trying, just by looking.

What he had truly wanted to have was only his heart, so all he had to do was accept it. He just wanted to love Hwi, but he didn’t know why that was so difficult and arduous.

At the feet of the sorrowfully weeping Yoonso, a single dandelion seed that had appeared out of nowhere came to rest. Yoonso grasped it preciously and poured strength into his clenched fist, as if afraid he would lose it.