Chapter 12

Chapter 12

Prince Hye began to put his ceremonial robes back on, one piece at a time, the ones he had cast off last night.

Sunlight fell across his sturdy body, and even seen again, it was a beautiful sight. I quietly watched him as though I were admiring a statue.

Once he was fully dressed, he came over and kissed my forehead. I flinched in alarm and pulled back.

He watched my pupils quiver as if an earthquake had struck them, looking thoroughly entertained. He was a more mischievous man than he appeared.

Why had he kissed my forehead for no reason?

The longer I was with him, the more questions piled up, and nothing seemed to have a proper answer, so I had no idea how to handle him.

No one had ever treated me like this. No one had ever looked at me with such… tender eyes, either.

That was why these things unsettled me. An anxiety, as though I had taken something I had no right to, tightened around my throat.

It felt as if I were foolishly coveting something that wasn’t mine. Whenever I felt like this, I had to be on my guard and careful, without exception.

“Rest well. Your husband has to go to work.”

“Yes…”

“Don’t feel sorry for yourself that I’m not at your side to look after you while you’re unwell.”

“I don’t feel sorry for myself. Please don’t worry.”

To begin with, I couldn’t understand why he’d feel the need to say such a thing. Who was I to feel sorry for myself? Who was I?

Prince Hye was not my servant, so there was no reason for him to tend to my illness. It flustered me all the more that he would point out something so obvious and explain it.

I could not for the life of me make out why he was being so attentive.

There were surely far more things he had that I did not. Whatever I could possess, he must already have in overflowing abundance.

So what on earth did he want, that he was so determinedly trying to shake me like this?

He surely had some scheme. Was he intoxicated by the newlywed atmosphere and wanted to play the doting husband for a few days? If so, there was nothing to stop me from playing along.

“That’s good, then, though I worried it might be so. Truthfully, from where I stand, caring for you while you’re ill would be easier and more pleasant than working. It isn’t that I don’t pity you, but now that I have a proper household to provide for, I must work hard as its head.”

With that, he tapped my cheek lightly. At that trivial gesture, my chest stirred restlessly.

‘…Household.’

…No, I can’t do this. Pull yourself together. I didn’t come here to have fun.

There was something fishy about this man. I couldn’t say exactly what, but it was certain.

There was something I didn’t know. My instincts, honed over a lifetime, were screaming it.

And yet.

“I will be in my study, so if you need me for anything, come to the study.”

And yet his voice stirred my heart like a spring breeze.

Though I knew some intricate, subtle circumstance was tangled up with his kindness, my chest still stung at the way he treated me with respect.

I didn’t know what to call a feeling like this.

Which was exactly why I had to be even more wary.

I did not want to cling to a mere scrap of a glance and live out my whole life in rotten hope. I did not want to ruin the rest of my days over a passing emotion, a fleeting kindness.

Mother used to say that when a woman marries, she must put her husband before her own body.

She said I must consider and look after my husband’s desires before my own, his safety before mine, his feelings before mine.

I didn’t want to live like that. I couldn’t live like that, either. Just as the events of my life had come about beyond my control, I couldn’t help putting myself ahead of others.

‘If all I gain by forcing down my instincts is a husband’s love, then that love is nothing but a poisoned chalice to me. Men are creatures who cannot help but betray.’

I stared straight at Prince Hye’s back as he closed the door of the bridal chamber and went out.

Even after his figure had vanished, I kept gazing at the door for a long while, as though trying to grasp the afterimage in my hand.

The door did not open again.

That was a relief, yet it also vividly reminded me that I had been left alone, and that pained me a little.

Only a little, just enough for a faint sob to mix into my breath. That was all, a mote of pain, no more.

* * *

Ryu Hyeok wore a complicated expression as he shut the door of the bridal chamber and came out.

Then, before heading to the study, he went to his own room and finished preparing for the day.

He could have finished grooming himself in the bridal chamber, but he had not, because his wife, whom he had welcomed after such a long wait, had looked desperately in need of time alone.

All his life he had observed the minds of others. After spending whole days interpreting glances, gestures, and presences, noticing that much was no trouble at all.

He cleansed his body, put on fresh clothes, and made himself presentable in neat attire.

He believed there was no need to be exceptionally handsome, but one did need to be tidy. A neat appearance was an extremely important element.

It lent weight to a man without his having to do anything remarkable, and it was the simplest way to earn trust.

Humans are weak to what is visible to the eye. He thought it pathetic that people were so fixated on appearances, yet he exploited that flaw thoroughly.

To smooth the road ahead, the best course was to use human nature point by point.

People were, in the end, nothing more than pieces on a janggi board, and violent sentiment had no place there.

To Ryu Hyeok, even his parents were just pieces on that board. There were no exceptions, however dear someone might be, and blood ties stirred no great feeling in him either.

He entered the study and sat down in his chair.

Because he was destined to become the next emperor, his father had entrusted him with minor duties so that he would grow skilled at handling affairs of state.

An emperor was a position one was seated in one day without warning.

Since no one could know when the reigning emperor would pass from the world, the next emperor had to prepare thoroughly. Only then could he deal capably with ruling all under heaven and keeping the people stable.

As he was grinding ink with a reverent heart before beginning his work, it was Hwacheon’s face that suddenly came to mind.

Her face, utterly undone and ruined. Her chest, heaving with breath that left no room to spare. Her voice, searching for him desperately, her clothes in disarray.

All of it came flooding in.

The hand gripping the ink stick paused slightly.

‘…I’m behaving like a green boy.’

In truth, the word “green” was not entirely wrong.

Just as she had given him her first, he had given her his. They had, fairly enough, shared each other’s firsts.

Even so, it was true that his knowledge was far greater. Men, generally, are better versed than women in the practicalities of that world.

So he had found the whole sequence neither difficult nor overwhelming.

It had even felt fascinating, as if he were studying the human body. Finding her weak places and pressing into them had been far too easy.

His wife, however, had seemed to find it rather overwhelming. Ordinarily, he might well have gone easy when someone struggled so much.

But he had not.

He had not been able to.

He had failed to proceed with patience and reason. For Ryu Hyeok, this was a startling change.

He had thought, just a little, that she was adorable as she sobbed. That was the cause of the change.

From the moment that thought arose, everything had gone awry.

He had pursued her with childish mischief, pressing on to the end against someone who had already lost and declared surrender.

‘I could have shown mercy.’

But he had not.

Her face as she resented him had been, far from irksome, welcome. He had wanted to be resented a little more, and to ruin her a little more.

Ah, this kind of thinking was far too dangerous.

Yet even knowing it was dangerous, he had wanted it.

“I can understand a little why men chase women…”

It was the first time he had properly known a woman’s body, so now, at last, he seemed to grasp the hearts of the lecherous.

That did not mean he had caught a late-blooming craze and meant to indulge in women.

He still had no great interest in women as a kind of being. It was only that he had developed a little interest in his own wife.

How far that small interest would go was impossible to say. Whether it would end as simple curiosity or spread into something greater.

But he was a man who knew restraint, and he knew well that taking someone deeply to heart would only cause trouble.

The moment you hold someone special, that person becomes a weakness.

Ryu Hyeok had no intention of creating a weakness for himself, nor of handing one over.

Someone like Ryu Jin was all right, strong enough that he needed no protection. There was no harm in taking the strong to heart.

But letting something frail into one’s heart was a thing never to be done.

His wife was, at a single glance, on the frail side. To make a weakness of that small thing, which would crumble if gripped and die if pushed, would be foolish.

He still thought she was adorable. But that was all. He would never say it aloud, and this feeling would never grow any larger.

“…Tonight will be a little hard on her.”

It would be better to simply let her rest today. That was what his head thought.

His head, at least.