Body & Soul 🇰🇷 Part 1

Chapter 154: Seo Yeon/ Kim Chun-Ae

...It had been a few years since that night; our children had already learned how to crawl, walk, talk, and feed themselves. Hyuk was a boy of six years old, already on his way to becoming the man his father had always wanted him to be, but there was a bit of my brother in him as well. He had a habit of attracting trouble with his cousins which his father and uncle were secretly proud of even though they had to chide him in front of others. But my boy was well-educated, bright for his age, and on his way to follow in his father's footsteps in the palace.

Hana was her daddy's girl from the moment she was born. She had always been attached to him and would regularly burst into tears whenever he had to leave home even for short work shifts. She would wait all day for him to come home by my side and hardly let him out of her sight once he was. My poor hard-working husband had no choice but to hold her in his arms all day but he loved her and spoiled her just as much. She was everything I was and more, she was sassy and fiercely opinionated, she didn't mind voicing her opinions to her father's company much to his delight. But when she was at home she hid in his shoulders, neck and hair and she belonged in his arms until she fell asleep in them.
Hyuk was a quiet boy who mostly kept to himself and his cousins but he was inseparable from his twin sister, even if they did have opposite personalities. He had on obsession with soldiers and the military from an early age before my husband even asked him what he wanted to do in life and tired to get close to anyone with heavy armour on. When he wasn't studying he was training and when he wasn't training he was with my brother's sons, completely attached to their hips and Hana wasn't too far behind them.

My children both washed my husband's darkness away as he watched them grow up day by day healthy and safe, away from Chun-Ae's clutches. Her son stayed around us as much as he could away from her grasp and we both still considered him an older brother to our children, Seon-Ho a little less so than me as time went by but at least he tolerated him.The twins hardly fought with each other and had a relationship very similar to mine and Hwi's. They had friends in different circles but they were always close to my nephews; Chul and Geon. As my daughter was the only girl she stayed close to me and her aunt Hui-Jee when she wasn't in her father's arms. I managed to cut down expenses from my husband's budget so we had more money to spend on the children rather than ourselves; from education to entertainment, we always took them out as much as possible.

We hardly saw Chun-Ae all this time except for when her presence was required from the palace. My husband had written to the King disclosing the fact that she had seduced a servant to father her child so he could keep them in check with his work, so they didn't dare to cross paths with me and my family. Not that they could do anything to us anyway, they were afraid of my husband and my brother. Chun-Ae was another story, however. She always found ways to leave her home and follow my husband around like she was his main wife and beg for him to take her back, always declaring her undying love for him and blaming me as the cause for everything. She even wrote letters to him of how he could reinstate her child for his as long as he abandoned mine. It was ludicrous but he would always catch her spies following us everywhere even our children which led us to have a lot of unexpected holiday memories along with my brother and his family in the different homes they were both granted by the royal family for their services. As for Bong-Ju, he was unfortunately forced to live with his mother until he reached the age of 10. Then he started running away from his home until one day, he just ran away and didn't come back home. I mourned for him and even Seon-Ho was a bit melancholic for a while although he wouldn't admit it. My children missed him but soon enough he just disappeared from their memories.

In the midsts of all the stalking and threats from Chun-Ae; my husband had managed to achieve more of the king's goals whilst working on his own with my brother. Chun-Ae was at the complete mercy of my husband and despite their reputation being shred into pieces by the rumours alone of why she was escorted out from our home by force. But it was getting hard to control her anymore. It was getting hard for me to trust my children to go outside without her doing something; I couldn't help it, I was getting paranoid no matter what my husband did to placate me. I could see he shared my worries as well and it came time for us to consider moving from the village we all grew up in together just to protect our children. And my brother could be targeted by association so there was no way I was leaving his family behind as well. Just as we were in the middle of the discussion, Seon-Ho was called back into the palace by the king personally. It wasn't out of character as he was latching onto my husband more and more in his final days, but I got a bad feeling this time. I just looked at him worryingly while Hana fell asleep on his shoulder. He just looked at me reassuringly, kissed his daughter while he handed her over to me, and left on his horse whilst all the boys chased after him as usual until he was out of sight.

He came back two days later to our holiday home with a face full of thunder and misery. We all looked at him in suspense with my children asleep on my lap...until Chun Ae walked in behind him with a smug look and 3 noblewomen walked in after them...and who else were they to be apart from the Kang sisters and even Hyo-Sonn who I hadn't seen for years, of all people. I felt chills run down my spine at the look on their faces as they looked at me like the lowborn I used to be. I couldn't stop the tears from spilling onto my face as Hui-Jee could only give him a disappointed look as she and Hwi took the children to their beds, as furious as I was. But we both knew husband had no choice in this but it hurt me a lot. I tried to follow my brother but he just grabbed my hand and sat me down. All the women he had brought gasped in shock; only my bother's family were used to our sense of affection that we displayed publicly, and we tried to limit it as much as possible in front of him out of respect. It even went against our country's moral laws so they weren't used to it at all, it even made Chun-Ae furious. But I couldn't think about that now; I had to deal with the fact that my husband had been gifted concubines...something he promised me he would never accept before I surrendered to him

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I couldn't believe the nerve of this bitch; crying like she was a victim before she gave a chance for everyone to talk. And as usual, she had my husband falling for her trap, he looked like he would kill anyone for the tears that she spilled. She tried to walk away but he had the audacity to hold her back publicly. My husband pretty much had me locked up in my wing on her orders so I never really witnessed them interact as a married couple. I only remembered the days she seduced him in his home and I was enraged to see their affections hadn't changed in the slightest.

She demanded an explanation from him and for some reason, he couldn't even look at her. He actually looked just as broken as she did. I restrained myself all I could; I knew if I could only get him away from her for good I can get him to surpass the King himself together we could take over the kingdom for ourselves. But this lowborn epileptic leech was standing in his way. When I hear they had plans to move away to live a lesser life I knew I had to do something to stop it. Thankfully the frail king granted me an audience and granted me my marriage back as favour to my family when I informed him of Seon-Ho's plan to move away. Even if I had to bring in a couple of concubines to solidify his position, but as long as they believed I was his first wife I could bring them to kneel to me.