Chapter 81: Seo Yeon

A few days had went by as I made sure he witnessed the harsh reality of my life; how people treated me like a joke and tried to set me up in the the worst of situations. But he just continued to stalk me like before and approached me every chance he got without saying a word unless I approached him first. He would...just stare at me intensely. He would take me to and from work, accompany me to the market and anywhere else I needed to be, and would make me ride with him on horseback, something I wasn't used to and he loved teasing me and frightening me with. He got intensely jealous of any man that approached me and picked stupid fights with ones that hovered around me for too long. Living with him...I expected him to have some issue due to his father's mistreatment but not this severe...I had no idea how both obsessive and jealous he could be, he wouldn't let anyone approach me unless it was people he knew!

One day....he started asking me if I had suffered from my work and tried to bring up my scars. I froze in my tracks; this was one of by biggest insecurities and one of the reasons I was holding myself back from him. He noticed the change in my demeanour as I started to out-walk him without saying a word but he reached out to me and managed to hold me back with his arm. I avoided his gaze as he tried to make me look at him; there was no point lying to him, he knew me for so long. My mind wondered back to what happened just yesterday: I came back to my room covered in whip lashes and blood only to find him in my room bloodier than I was. He had just come back from taking care of some rebels that were beginning to pillage every village in their sight. But when he saw me he didn't go on an angry tirade this time. He just looked at me sadly before picking me up in his arms and took off my top so he could attend to my scars without letting me attend to him first. "What's the point? I chase you and care for you and you still run away from me. I've done everything in my power to convince you how serious I am about you and you still run from me, even though I knew you are just protecting me." I couldn't help but cry with every word he was saying; but I t was true. Why was I still running away from him? "But what if I end up hurting you myself? You know couldn't live with myself if that happened." But he didn't respond at all; I turned around to find him passed out next to me on the floor. My heart absolutely broke as I began to turn and undress him and I saw his wound...his old wounds he got from his father. I tended to him as much as I could and I waited for him to wake up as I started making a balm for him to get rid of these wounds one and for all. He finally woke up and I was still tending to his scars on his legs. "You stupid man. You chase me and tend to me and you don't even bother to take care of yourself. Here, I've made this balm for your old scars, you need to let me apply them on you twice a day."I traced his scars and I asked him about each and every one of them before he grabbed me and pulled me into his chest, knocking us both over to the ground. He then made his way towards me slowly and buried himself in me...and he looked exhausted, broken and neglected....and I gave up, running away, giving excuses, avoiding him by burying myself in useless work. I loved him and I was craving to be with him no matter what happened now.

But I had a few loose ends to sort out before I could let that happen; mainly to take care of the bullies that had started humiliating me on a daily basis ever since that night of the party. A lot of people were jealous of my 'relationship' and soon enough I was questioned non-stop by almost ever employee around me but I kept my mouth shut and tried to carry on with my work in silence. I had honestly expected this ever since I cleared his name in the palace; I was fully aware of everything that would come with his new life, including the new attention I got no matter how much I tried to hide from it. Soon; the very same people that used to badmouth him before and treated him like dirt on the streets suddenly came up to him at every chance they got and I saw him much it angered him. But it soon looked like some of my behaviour had started to rub off on him since he also starred playing little tricks and caused public scenes to catch out gold-diggers and such...or rather he got me to do it for him as a way of keeping me close to him. On this matter however, I didn't mind doing it in the least. Honestly...it surprised me that he wasn't upset about this side of me; I actually think it was pure entertainment for him. I always noticed him watching me with pure fascination which only made me fall for him harder. In fact...everything he did made me fall for him, a lot more than before I had lost my memoirs...and before I knew it we were spending a lot of time together whenever this happened.

He had me pose as his assistant a few times when we were outside when some leech would usually 'come across him by accident'. He would usually pretend to be temporarily busy in his office as I would start calling them out on their bluffs by recalling their past behaviours towards him and their current debts and problems that Seon-Ho had me memorise when he came to see me on my days off and started giving me serious horse riding lessons of all things, completely against my will of course. And when I was successful at my guesses, Seon-Ho would then chastise them and make their intentions clear for all. As for me; I only did it on work bases when people would abuse me and mistreat my for my social status that I didn't really think too much about since I could easily adapt to both worlds when needed. I was being scouted for small jobs anyways in both world where my tricks had become something renowned; I was to enter households and workplaces to catch out suspicious people, almost like a spy, managed by Madame Seoul of course. I would stay long enough to be part of such places, get to know everyone and uncover their misdeeds, debts or other intentions people had to go against each other i.e. greed, jealousy, financial gain and so on. I was even employed by Seon-Ho's superior to infiltrate his household where he had some of his in-laws staying with him for some time and he had soon realised that his expensive household items would end up missing and re-appearing in the market halls. So I was hired temporarily as a maid or a visiting guest as I would investigate the suspects. My appearance was a lot easier than people conducting their own investigations, especially with noble families who had loveless marriages who were paranoid about each other that they couldn't trust anyone in their social or work circles to conduct investigations for them. Seon-Ho wasn't too happy about this but my brother soon got word of what I was doing; he wasn't happy either. I still wasn't really on talking terms with him since he refused to leave the palace but I soon had no choice but to het him and his friends involved so they could see how professional I was, especially amongst women in their friendship groups who wanted spies for everyone else's secrets. Some of it even took place in Ihwaru so Hwi was eventually at ease with it.