Chapter 15

Chapter 15

Inside the carriage bound for the imperial palace.

Clear sunlight settled on the elegant bridge of the woman’s nose.

Ryu Hyeok studied the shapes the light cast in shadow, and soon his eyes met hers. Hwacheon’s eyes took in the light and, turning paler, glittered like pure gold.

But her gaze lingered on him far too briefly before scattering.

‘How stingy she is, my wife.’

She would not grant even ten seconds of her gaze in his direction.

“Hwacheon.”

Even so, at the moment he called her name, she faced him squarely. To hold her gaze, he had to keep speaking to her without pause.

There was no reason he needed to hold that gaze, and yet it had become rather desperate to him.

“Yes, Your Highness.”

Ah, she lowered her eyes again. Winning her glance was harder than winning gold and jewels.

What on earth was that woman’s gaze made of, that it stirred a man’s heartstrings so?

“Are you nervous?”

“…Yes.”

“There’s no need to be. They are good people.”

Hearing this, Hwacheon snorted. It sounded somehow like mockery of Ryu Hyeok.

“Why do you laugh?”

“Just… just because.”

Hwacheon found Ryu Hyeok’s remark laughable. They were his parents, so of course he felt at ease.

They were the people who had set him above all others, so to him they would be nothing but good people, but would they be so to her as well?

This was why husbands, of all people, had to mind their words. A single word can repay a thousand-nyang debt, so they say, yet these men were a breed who could run up debts that never existed with one misspoken sentence.

What guarantee was there that, because his parents treated him well, they would treat their daughter-in-law well?

They might be as kind to her as they were to their son, but they might just as easily torment her as a bewitching creature who had stolen their precious boy.

And if in-laws of a private household were hard enough to bear, how much worse in-laws of the imperial house! If she became certain they were not good people, it would be far more profitable to throw herself into a lake and be off to the underworld before enduring that ordeal.

At present she lived in the prince’s residence, so thankfully she did not have to see her in-laws every day, but once the investiture of the crown prince was over and they entered the palace, how suffocating it would be.

Unable to go out as she pleased, shut up in the palace and cut off from the outside world, she would slowly wither away.

How many women had lived out their days that way? Too many to count.

What a rotten life.

“You’re worried they might not be good people.”

“I said no such thing.”

“Did you not think it, either?”

It was better to utter a lie and slip away than to confess the truth and be caught at a weak point.

It might leave her heart unrelieved, but her body suffered less that way. Hwacheon had already learned this.

“I didn’t think that, either.”

“Truly?”

“Truly.”

He knew at once that she had lied. But he did not reproach her.

To treat her husband’s words lightly and laugh at them was rude, but he was not so petty that he could not tolerate that much.

She was fated to become his wife and suffer countless hardships; to refuse her even this much grumbling would be too cruel.

“Hwacheon, do you dislike this marriage?”

Talking around a matter was not to Ryu Hyeok’s taste. Whether he dealt with others or others dealt with him, he preferred candor.

Even if the truth he spoke was rude, no one in his presence dared utter a peep.

Candor, too, was part of privilege. It was not something anyone could enjoy, nor was it allowed at all times.

Only the strong could freely enjoy candor. In other words, candor was proof of power.

He was curious. How would she react to this question?

Would she try to placate him with a false smile? Or tear up as though wronged? Or panic and wave her hands in denial?

Whichever it was, it would be entertaining to watch. The antics of the weak were always a pleasure to see.

“I do.”

But she overturned every expectation. She did not placate him, did not weep, did not flounder.

She stayed calm, and her expression barely changed. What was more, she looked rather relieved to have said it.

It was an unexpected answer, but that made it all the more enjoyable and interesting. Even if it was a slip of the tongue, he did not mind.

Standing before him, it did not matter what noble house she came from. He was Prince Hye, one beneath only one and above ten thousand, who could take her life at any moment.

“Why do you dislike it?”

She had been bold in voicing her opposition to the marriage, yet when asked the reason, she shut her mouth. What sort of temperament was that?

The more he watched, the more novel and fresh she seemed. She was like a freshly caught fish, flopping about in desperation.

However hard she struggled, she was in his grasp in the end, and whatever she said would fall under his influence.

That she acted so transparent, as if she didn’t know it or had overlooked it, seemed foolish.

Because she was foolish, it was all the more amusing.

“I would like to hear the reason. Will you not tell me?”

But how could Hwacheon answer that she disliked it because he would surely take to keeping concubines before long?

Hwacheon did not want to show that truth. The moment she revealed it, he would grasp her weak point and surely use it to tame her more thoroughly.

She could not hand yet another opening to an already sly old serpent of a man.

The moment she showed a serpent a gap, it would coil around her whole body and her neck, squeeze, and swallow her in one gulp.

“I dislike handsome men.”

In the end, Hwacheon came out with that lie.

It was not entirely false. His excessively dazzling looks were harmful to her heart and a great burden on it.

“…You dislike handsome men?”

This time, Ryu Hyeok did not notice Hwacheon’s lie.

It was not that her acting was flawless; rather, the remark had been so startling to him that his powers of discernment had dulled.

“Yes, I dislike handsome men. That is why I did not want to marry Your Highness.”

People yearn for beauty. That is an eternal truth. Yet Hwacheon was saying she disliked him because he was beautiful.

Ryu Hyeok could not accept this inexplicable disconnect, and for a moment he was dazed.

To prize beautiful things, things pleasing to the eye, is instinct. Then was Hwacheon someone who suppressed her instincts, or someone whose instincts were twisted?

“Why?”

“Even if you ask me why, I have nothing else to say. Must there be a reason to dislike something? To dislike is simply to dislike; there is no grand cause behind it. People think they dislike things for a reason, but in truth it is not so.”

“Hmph…”

“It is not that one dislikes something because there is a reason; it is that one dislikes it, and so attaches a reason to it. The order is backwards. What one dislikes, one simply dislikes. One wants to keep it at a distance. Just because.”

His wife was rather good with words. With only a few sentences, she had made him concede.

But the logic that had convinced him seemed to deny the whole of the life he had lived, and it gave him a headache.

“I thought you liked my face.”

Hearing that, Hwacheon thought Ryu Hyeok was truly an insufferable man.

He knew perfectly well himself that he was handsome. How utterly arrogant.

Though she did admit he was gifted enough to be allowed that arrogance.

“Why would Your Highness think so?”

“Doesn’t your face turn red when I bring mine close?”

Ryu Hyeok suddenly thrust his face toward her. His scent wafting over her and that strikingly handsome face struck Hwacheon’s heart without mercy.

Her face heated in an instant, and the red spread all the way down to her neck.

Behold, she was enjoying his looks this honestly, so how could she dismiss such a physiological reaction?

“It’s red again now.”

“It’s merely a physiological, reflexive reaction! Anyone would flush from the shock if someone suddenly thrust their face at them.”

“It’s subtly different from flushing in surprise. And I know how to tell the difference.”

Ryu Hyeok leaned back at his leisure.

Then, as if a stubborn streak had risen in her, Hwacheon thrust her own face right up to his, determined to prove her point.

At that brazen attack, even Ryu Hyeok’s thick-skinned face cracked slightly. Those bright, sparkling eyes held only him.

As expected, it was a face with something a little endearing about it.

Having thought so, Ryu Hyeok avoided Hwacheon’s gaze and needlessly rubbed the back of his neck. He tried to feign nonchalance and look elsewhere, but the tips of his ears flushed faintly red.

Hwacheon caught it and pointed a finger at his ear.

“Look. Your ears have turned red too, Your Highness, from the shock.”

“Your face turned red, and my ears turned red. There is a clear difference between the two.”

Hwacheon drooped her eyebrows as if wronged. Then, impudently, she grumbled something in a voice too quiet for him to hear.

She seemed to have grown comfortable with her husband already. How was she to survive in the stern imperial court if she carried on like this?

The Minister of the Left seemed to have indulged his daughter thoroughly.

But he did not dislike it. Thanks to it, she was amusing him with such saucy antics, so in the end, the victor was Ryu Hyeok.