Chapter 52

“I just can’t ignore your sincerity. So, you don’t have to take it seriously. So, please don’t have any vain expectations.”

“Of course not. I just want to clear your misunderstanding about me. I don’t have any underlying motives towards you,” he said, chiming in with her reply.

When he replied like that, she replied in an embarrassed and disappointed tone, “Oh, I’m glad you said that…” But she alternately pursed and bit her lips, and she fidgeted the letter with her fingers while trying to put it down on purpose.

He jokingly added, “Please don’t throw it away.”

“I’m not bad-mannered enough to do that.”

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“Thank you.”

“I even keep all the blank slips from you. So, don’t worry.”

“Really?”

He seemed to feel he was out of sync with her again. And then she turned quickly without giving him any time to ponder over it.

“Let me leave first,” she said.

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“Please take care.”

Looking at her disappearing slowly, he tilted his head.

After watching her leaving the North Palace, Ruhae also turned back to head for his residence in the South Palace. He felt rather heavy when returning. He was habitually walking back, lost in deep thoughts.

“Blank slips…” he kept repeating it. That word Kyosul said casually fixed his mind. “What did she say she collected?”

Staying in his office, he was fixated on that word while recalling every word she said.

Kyosul’s word was the most difficult coded message. Reading classical books, interpreting the difficult articles of criminal justice and even handling the messy state affairs was easier than deciphering her message.

After thinking hard, he finally interpreted it in several ways.

“Did she want to reassure me that she doesn’t throw away stuff easily?”

That’s a possibility, but he was bothered by what she said to him. He took notice of her way of speaking and expression that suggested something to him.

In particular, he recalled her darting eyes as if she gave him some kind of eye signal. He also recalled her pursing her lips often and blushing with a puckish smile.

“Yeah, she can be weird sometimes.”

He felt he might needlessly think of her as too picky and difficult to deal with.

“Indeed, your small actions makes me wonder about your motivation a lot,” he murmured with a hearty laugh. Then, he didn’t care too much about it.

***

As soon as she woke up in the morning, Kyosul opened the window. She was accustomed to it by now. She didn’t have any intention of basking in the sun or ventilating air.

When she opened the window and checked its sash, there was always a happy smile on her lips.

Today, too, there was a flower on the windowsill.

“Does he expose himself to the early morning dew to place this flower here?”

Sticking her upper body out of the window, she looked around. She imagined the secret stranger’s moving up to her residence.

Most likely he would sneak into the back of her residence to avoid the court ladies’ eyes and then come up to the windowsill right next to her bed.

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When she thought about it carefully, she suddenly felt warm deep inside.

“How cute he is!”

She grinned casually and then pressed her lips with her fingertips in surprise.

“Did I say he was cute? Oh my…I think I took it from Prince Heyjin’s mouth.”

Kyosul could understand what Heyjin meant by ‘cute’ when she described her husband’s behavior. When Kyosul imagined Ruhae placing this blank slip every morning, she couldn’t find any other expression of his image than ‘cute’.

She picked up that little flower placed neatly on the windowsill and walked cheerfully away from the window. She opened the lowest drawer of her desk and put it with all the other flowers. The drawer was already full of flowers. She felt happy, looking at the blue-tinged inside of the drawer.

Obviously each of the flowers suggested that Ruhae thought about her often.

She could confirm directly that all the moments he thought about was capsuled in the drawer.

“Will he come today?”

She went to the North Palace every other day, but she hadn’t bumped into him since she received the letter from him the other day. When Kyosul asked Heyjin in passing, she just shook her head. Perhaps, he was snowed under with state affairs.

After thinking hard about him unconsciously, she came to her senses, “What am I doing now?”

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Whenever she felt happy about him, she got nervous. She even felt a sense of guilt when she wondered if it was okay for her to stay complacent and carefree. She looked inside the drawer with complicated mind. She narrowed her eyes and pouted once more then she shut the drawer, closing her eyes.

Bang!

After she shut the drawer with a bang, she couldn’t let go of the knob.

Rather she held the knob so tightly that her fingertips turned white with strain.

When she opened her eyes, she felt her resolve not to lose heart to Ruhae began to collapse.

“Why should I…”

Her eyes narrowed. She took her hand off the drawer, pulling herself together, but when she opened her eyes, she noticed the thick letter from Ruhae.

Foolishly enough, she read it again and again. As if not content with reading about his sincere love of her, she put it on the desk and read it whenever she could. She couldn’t control the strong urge to grab it before she knew.

“Oh, I now understand…” As the wife of the Crown Prince, she was scared about her relationship with Ruhae. “I now understand he didn’t intend to deceive me.”

She felt ashamed of herself after recalling that she got upset about him first the moment she came to realize his real identity.

“But what should I do?”

She couldn’t do anything with him even if he handed that letter to her. Rather she felt a sense of distance from him all the more.

She held the letter and folded it while trying her best to hide her genuine longing to read it often. She folded it a couple of times then opened the drawer containing the flowers he placed at the windowsill ever day.

After she put Ruhae’s thick letter on the pile of flowers inside the drawer, her angst went on. She had to shut the drawer again. She was wrestling with herself over how to deal with him.

The nanny suddenly came into her room, screaming.

“Your Highness Kyosul!” Kyosul quickly closed the draw, when the nanny told her, “I hear Princess Heyjin collapsed!”

“What did you say? Heyjin collapsed? When I saw her at the North Palace the other day, she was in good condition.”

“Your Highness! What shall we do?”

Nervous and unable to calm down, the nanny touched her hand. She just licked her lips for a while without telling Kyosul what happened, and finally opened her mouth, “In fact, the thing is ….”

***

Ruhae was staying in his office today. As he had lots of petitions to take care of, he could not leave the office. Deep inside he wanted to go to the North Palace right away, but he couldn’t.

“It was a good thing that I took my time out to go to the North Palace and hand my letter to Crown Princess Kyosul.”

He felt it so fortunate that he could often go there and see her. Right after he handed his letter to her, he happened to be busy.

While he was busy with work, the eunuch on standby suddenly came into his room, announcing in a loud voice, “Your Majesty!”

Ruhae looked at him with a curious look as the palace army stormed his room without showing any proper decorum.

They shouted, “Arrest him right away!”

They charged forward and stopped him.

“How rude you are! How could you come to this place like this?”

“Move back!”

They grabbed the eunuch who was trying his best to stop them by all means. With his face turning white, the eunuch turned back. Ruhae was standing in his place in a calm manner.

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“I’m alright. So, stand aside for them.”

“Eunuch Jang, we are the imperial army.”

The imperial army was responsible for protecting the Emperor as well as his own army. And the only person who could mobilize them was the Emperor himself. Accordingly, it was the Emperor who ordered them to come here to Ruhae’s residence.

Shivering with fear the eunuch lowered his head, but he couldn’t resist Ruhae’s pushing him aside lightly.

“Your Majesty…” the eunuch crumbled to the floor, shouting in a crying tone. He rammed hit his head on the floor in that process.

“Your Majesty, please excuse us for a minute.”

As the atmosphere became serious, they now began to use the honorific, but Ruhae didn’t show any nervousness and looked at them with composure.

“Did a serious incident take place in the palace now that the imperial army came to my place and tie me up like this?” he asked.

“I’m sorry I can’t tell you what happened while we are transporting you like this.”

“I’m following your order without any resistance. Why don’t you tell me about the reason for arresting me?”