Empress Handbook

Chapter Thirty-One | Lonely Sailing

As the year ends with Christmas pottering around the corner, engagements also increase.

In the busiest of times, Yeoreum forgets about her pregnancy with her abdomen still as flat as before. Still, her meticulously scheduled prenatal appointments always disrupt that peacefulness.

It is a sunny cold day, Yeoreum's favourite kind, where the whole world feels like it's engulfed in cold air conditioning. As much as Yeoreum loves the crisp cool air that holds lingering shards of ice, she has to adjust the heater temperature a couple of degrees higher than usual to prevent her post-hypothermia body from experiencing traumas again. No matter how many times this happens, every time Yeoreum has to make an adjustment because of the drowning incident, an overwhelming sense of hatred takes over her.

A yawn slips from Yeoreum as she finishes typing the script for a talk at a university. After a short moment of hesitance, Yeoreum extends her arm towards the coffee cup at the end of her desk. She purposely made it inconvenient to reach to suppress the urge to consume caffeine, but it is still not working out.

Before Yeoreum's lips could touch the cup, the door gets pushed open. Taehyung's smile disappears as soon as he sees the content of her cup.

"Yeoreum," Taehyung says, raising his voice enough for Yeoreum to put her coffee down. "Is that coffee? Why are you drinking coffee? You can't consume caffeine!"

"The baby will be fine," Yeoreum snarls. "Please calm the fuck down."

"The doctor said you shouldn't consume caffeine because it increases your blood pressure and heart rate," Taehyung says gravely. "Also, it can be passed to the baby through the placenta. There is no way that the baby can fully metabolise the caffeine."

Yeoreum sighs. "Fine, I will be more careful with my caffeine consumption in the future."

As Taehyung's expression lightens, a medicine box on Yeoreum's desk catches his attention. He reads the cover, and his eyebrows furrow with concern.

"Did you take painkillers?" Taehyung says.

Taehyung's interrogative tone drains the dregs of Yeoreum's patience. She snatches the box of mild painkillers from his hand and throws it into the bin beside his leg.

"Happy?" Yeoreum says. "I had to present an award to a cabinet master, and the headache this stupid baby caused was killing me."

Taehyung lowers his gaze with apparent traces of disillusion entwined and combined again and again in his eyes. Finally, he manages to muster the courage to ask the question that has been twisting in his chest.

"Do you not like the child?" Taehyung says.

Yeoreum gulps. "I do like it."

It. Taehyung frowned.

"You seemed like the children at the Imperial House of Hope, and you adored Jungwol, so I thought you would be fond of the child, especially because it is...ours."

Yeoreum folds her lips in silence. She cannot bring herself to lie to Taehyung over their child, but more strongly, she cannot lie to herself either.

Taehyung takes a deep breath. The pungent smell of coffee fills his lungs, reminding him of the void in his chest that was there when he decided to murder Yeoreum. Taehyung had repeated over and over in his mind that perhaps it wasn't fully his fault; his mother came up with the idea, and Soojung was the person who executed it, and then, there was Cheonji Island....

A bitter feeling floods Taehyung's heart. Exactly, he obliged and obeyed, apathetically, making him as unforgivable as his mother and Soojung.

Taehyung doesn't want to look at Yeoreum. He is terrified to do so, but the urge to find the faintest semblance of care possesses him, raising his gaze to hunt for it. There is none.