The Love They Never Had: The Nam Mansion

Chapter 25: Honlanseuleoun (Confusion)

I couldn't help but to make myself at home in his quarters, it just wasn't the same without Seon-Ho being at home and humouring me in his spare time. I still had no memories of the extremely handsome man who kept taking care of me, and I did try to be formal in my etiquette around him. But there was just something about him that made me drop my guard and just be myself around him. I could be carefree, I could be spoilt, I could be childish and he would just laugh at me all day long, as if I was his only source of entertainment. And I had to say, seeing him smile was a rare treat, when he wasn't moping around and isolating himself on purpose that was. There was something that was eating that man up inside and I had no idea what is was, but it wasn't my place to ask. Yet. But I have been beginning to fee as if there was something that I had forgotten in my memories that bonded myself and the Young Master into a family. But because of his father's strong dislike for me, I knew that it wasn't the young master's fault, I really could not help but to feel abandoned in a sense, and it was making me do everything I could to rebel and start my own life instead of just being locked up all of the time and everyone around me treating me like I was less of a person when they didn't know me at all. So as soon as the Nam men set off for war and as much as it pained me to think I might never see the Young Master again, I was hell bent on reinventing myself and going against the Confucius laws that oppressed women so badly that we were seen as nothing more than baby-producing animals that were sold off to the highest bidder and nothing more. Who was to say that women were good for nothing more than marriage? If we wanted to be educated, what exactly was stopping us? If we wanted to earn money, who said that we couldn't? I wasn't even noble by birth so why was I dressed in these expensive clothing layer after layer when there were all sorts of people like the young master who were talented but couldn't even hope to have dreams that could change their lives. And then there were lowlives like Nam Jeon who did not hesitate to ruin other people's lives to climb up the social rank and create more chaos to keep his pockets full and his name on everybody's lips.

As far as I knew, Nam-Jeon used to work in the Royal Stables...god knows what he did to rise in the Emperor's court as a part of the Privy Council, and I didn't want to know. But the fact that he started out with the same social background as me, but he had the nerve to despise me? To treat me like litter just as I had lost all of my memories? And to treat his son worse than a dog? I understood as a parent it must not have been easy for him to lose his child...but to treat the only other living one he had like a puppet? It was all too much, just who the hell did this man think he was? He lorded himself around the village in his sedan chair like he was part of the Imperial Royal Family themselves...the whole thing was just too hypocritical to bare...but I also had to take in the man who saved me into account. It was clear as day that he wasn't going to let anything happen to me. I did not understand or remember why he was so protective over me...but I was grateful to him nonetheless. He saved my life, so now it was time to repay the debt I owed him even if it had just been a few months since I had found myself here.

So I had taken my time to careful observe my new surroundings and the people in it, and I more or less an idea of what his plans were, in terms of the servants and the new maids at least. And why wouldn't I help him, after everything that he had done for me? "But you really do look a lot like the young woman who used to chase after her brother's but friend. She was also epileptic just like you..." That sentence that the maid uttered kept coming up in my mind every so often, and it was really starting to disturb me a little bit. Why would she say that? Unless she was deliberately trying to play tricks with me just because the Young Master much preferred to be in my company rather than her's. Yes, that had to be it. She just wanted to sow discord between us so she could have him to herself. They were not even married for goodness sake; there were no signed contracts, Master Nam seemed to despise her more than he did me, and there was something else that the Young Master didn't know about, something I had found out about her during his war absence. I was just waiting for the right time to tell him. And in the meantime, I put myself in charge of dinner tonight so I could treat the Young Master to the meal on his first day of work. But it also looked like somebody else had the exact same idea when I had one of my new servants run up to me in a panic over a fight that had broken out in the kitchens of all places.