Chapter 102: Myeongkwaeham (Clarity)

"Who? Who will you marry? Who on earth understands you more than I do? Nobody loves you more than I will? I mean, which other legitimate noble woman like myself will throw herself at an illegitimate bastard like you?" Those words about my background that once cut deep into my flesh and soul every time it was mentioned now meant nothing to me at all. Every single day I lived in my fathers home for over a decade I was mentally, psychically and emotionally tortured for being born illegitimate and this Confucius society treated people like me worse than animals. I thought I would never in my life have a chance to carry out my own dreams, my own goals and the chances I had to help reform this country. And after my investigation was cleared, I had understood that the Emperor was going to reward me for my services by turning in my own father as soon as he was executed. ith my dream job at hand, I would finally be allowed to impeach corrupt officials like my father once was and I was allowed to have opinions on the general state of affairs. I now had a chance of helping lowborn's like the Seo's, my dead mother....and the part of me that was always lowborn when my mother tried to raise me alone. But it wasn't due to my efforts alone and I had no idea how Yeon knew that was what I wanted to do when I had never mentioned it to her even once. And there were plenty of things that I could do to occupy my time and even help the investigation end earlier, but I couldn't do anything without these doubts looming over my head on whom I could trust and who I should cut out of my life. I needed to find Hwi...

"Master?" "Yes?" "You told me to keep an eye on Seo Yeon whilst she..." "Go on?" "Wait, what are you talking about? Why are you having Yeon followed? What is..." "Be quiet woman! What is it Sung-Rok? Tell me?" "She has been going to work as a washerwoman. In the most unsavoury part of the village where adultery is prevalent anywhere." "What did you just say?" "There are...a group of orphaned woman who can only do this sort of work to support themselves. And the men..." blind rage almost took a hold of me as I began to tear apart everything that was in my line of vision. This wasn't the first time that I had lost my composure like this and I doubted I would be the last time as far as Yeon was concerned. Why was she doing this to me? Wh wasn't she coming to me like she always did? What was she hiding? Fine, if this was the game that she wanted to play, then I could play along...

"Master?" "And what else? What is it?" Sung-Rok shot me a look to tell me that Hui-Jee shouldn't be anywhere near this conversation, so I almost dragged him into my office by his collar before he spoke again. "Seo Hwi is back; he makes visits to his sister when she can, maybe twice a week at most. That is why she spends so much time outside of your home..." "Say no more, take me to him now before I make decision about his sister...and all of our futures." "I asked you where you were going?" "How the hell is that any of your business?" I muttered as I made my way out of this damned home before I suffocated amidst the ghosts of the past with no answers and a 100 questions. "What is that awful smell on you? Did you wrestle somebody in manure or something?" I just ignored this little girl as I applied a birthday gift that Yeon actually made for me by scratch. She thought I had thrown it away in front of her because I knew my father's men were watching her and I didn't want my father to hurt her. But little did she know that I snuck into her bedroom...the bedroom of my late mother as soon as she fell asleep and I took it out from under her pillow when she fell asleep. I had no idea what made her change the room back to its original state but I was truly grateful for it. And this was the first birthday present that I had ever received in my entire life from anybody at all, so of course I was curious to use it. And it was my mother's favourite scent as well; blue wildflowers that she always brought back to hang around the home before she...

"Go back to the brothel and I will meet you later. I have just about had enough of your nonsense and whims and it is high time that you started repaying me for all of the favours that I have bestowed onto you." "Are you being serious?" "We discussed this before, remember? And if you do not want to help me, then you can figure out a way to pay me back." "But..." "But nothing. I always call in my favours, no-one can escape that...not even her..." "What on earth could be more important than me right now?" I was getting so frustrated that once again, I had no choice but to surrender to my impulsive anger now that Yeon was nowhere in sight to calm me down. It looked like Hui-Jee had succumbed to the lifestyle she was surrounded by as her intelligence wasted away in Hwi's absence and that spark she always had that made men crawl after her and worshipped the ground that she had walked on. 4 long years had passed by since we first met and we all had changed from the people we were back then. Hui-Jee was older than myself and Hwi by 2 years, and she was no longer the most beautiful woman in the village anymore, and she must be aware of that. Hui-Jee was once a bold and intelligent woman that was unfortunately brought up in a brothel. Our paths crossed just before the military exam that would foreshadow the unthinkable events that turned my dearest friend into my enemy for a while. And under the horrible treatment from my father, I had to admit that I did throw myself headlong at her because I foolishly thought that due to her relaxed nature around me that I had a chance...to be loved, even when she made it clear that it was Hwi that he chose. So I gave up a long time ago, but I still kept hovering around Ihwaru whenever I wanted a drink or just a break from home, because I had a feeling that I could use the gibang (brothel) later on. She was now beginning to represented everything that I despised, she was basically the female version of my father who just could not leave me alone. The two sexes were not supposed to touch each other unless they were married and even then it was completely minimised and definitely not seen in public either. So I walked up to her until she was cornered against the wall, to make here think that something was going to happen, something that I had never even had the opportunity to explore myself since everyone hated my existence. And just when she was stupid enough to fall for it, I opened the door that she was leaning on and I shoved her out of it. I couldn't live like this anymore without seeing Yeon again and getting my answers. And the only way to find her was through her brother.

It was easy enough to find him; the once Seo Hwi who always left himself vulnerable enough to protect his loved ones had now flourished under the corrupt third prince that I had no choice but to make him close enough to to take down under my father's orders. That was the sinister plan my father had after hai returned to the war that he was supposed to have died in under his orders in the military; my father wanted power and to puppeteer the Emperor himself, but he had to rid himself of his strongest opponent which was the infamous third prince who was the only prince with a cunning mind and a terrifyingly sharp mouth of his own. But he hated bastards like myself and I knew that he would find a way to annihilate illegitimate children like me and I did not even want to think of how he would want to do it. But I knew that I had to get Hwi away from him and soon, and only his sister cold help me with that as well.

I only had a few hours until Yeon's anticipated arrival and I already had a plan in mind. No matter what our once close friendship had been though; I still knew that man inside and out and vice versa. All I had to do was to get him drunk enough to make him talk to me again, and his biggest weakness in this life was Yeon...just like she was slowly becoming mine.

I settled myself in the bushes in front of his home as I witnesses him anxiously walking inside and outside his home waiting for her. It was almost 3 in the morning and I knew he could not sleep unless she had come home. I truly had no idea how he could have possible functioned without 'his light in his life' for 4 years when I had not seen her for only 3 months and even I felt like I was hanging off of an edge of a cliff...On the very day that I had gotten my first promotion, I was very surprisingly treated to a drink with the rest of the office and I had taken them to Ihwaru where the higher class went for entertainment and drinks. They like so many officers in the palace had been oppressed by my father and that just meant more hate would be thrown my way. But when Yeon submitted the piece that I wrote secretly along with the fact that Yeon had brought all of my father's crimes to light made everyone in the palace finally look at me with the respect that I had always craved. Never again would I have to suffer cruel insults, being left behind to do all of the work and being ridiculed for every little thing that I did. And now because I took them to Ihwaru, I was now a permeant member that had privileges, including sending many bottles of liquor of a lightweight Hwi. We still hadn't spoken to each other after the dust had settled due to his work with the prince. I had no idea of Yeon took that into consideration or not but it gave us the space and time that we needed to calm down and think things through. I missed Hwi who had been a part of my life every single day and was the only light in it before the military exam. I had so much to explain to him, to unburden myself to him, but as much as I wish to denied it; a shift had occurred in our relationship as he had more people in his life and more responsibilities. We were no longer children who only had time for each other, and I knew that every single day that Yeon wasn't back home with him that he would blame me for that, which just gave me more reasons and motivation to find Yeon and bring her home. No matter what had happened... I could not forget him or even imagine the rest of my days without him. If he needed more time then all he needed to do was to tell me, because I was going to bring back his sister either way.

I didn't have to wait for long when I saw that the bottles of liquor had been dropped off to his home in his sister's and woman's name. I knew that he was going to need it to clam his nerves down as I predicted he had spent the entire day off work and cleaning for his precious sister's return. And it only took him a single bottle to already get him drunk. I watched him take one more before I joined him in his drunken stupor since my drinking tolerance had gotten better throughout the years in his absence.

"You...why are you..." "How many of me are you seeing right now? I might not even be here at all you know." I tried to smirk at him like I used to but teasing him on my own wasn't the same without Yeon joining in as well. "Since when did you come in triplets? I can see 3 of you right now. You never told me that you had brothers..." "Ok old man, take a breather whilst I join you." "But I hate you. And you hate me." "I've never hated you Hwi. But do you hate me?" "I hate you...and I miss you...and I want to strangle you...and I want to beat you properly when we spar again...and I want to..." "Ok ok, we will have all the time in the world for these things, when you aren't paying attention to your new friends I mean." I couldn't help but to sound bitter at that last part and I felt my face heat up when I looked at him...just staring at me in a way that I secretly felt him looking at me sometimes. "But they aren't you." He whispered before taking another swig of his drink and he fell into my lap and not for the first time. But this was the first time that we were alone together, which instantly made me relieve our best memories and some other questionable doubts that I had always carried silently in my heart, but that was a story for another time. Like I said we were no longer children and so many things had happened between us...and he had a woman now. He still had a special place in my heart but his sister...I was a fool to deny that she had taken over every single one of my senses in a not-so-subtle way that no one had ever done before, not even Hui-Jee.