The Love They Never Had: The Nam Mansion

Chapter 70: Balgyeon (Discovery)

I couldn't believe how much she had changed the Young Master since I had seen him last. And now I barely had a chance to watch him as he spent almost every free moment he had just watching her from her room with a strange look on his face that I did not like at all. At first he looked at peace just watching her and assumed that it had something to do with their relationship from the past but now it looked like there was something more to all of this. Checking up on her once in a while was understandable, but watching her almost every chance he got made it pretty clear how he felt about her even though he kept denying it to himself and everyone around him. He still tried to keep the distance between them to her face but he always watched her walk away until she was out of sight with a sad, angry and frustrated look that he always gave in the direction of his father's study before storming away. I even caught him a few times smiling to himself in his study after he just watched her for as long as he could. I even caught him once to twice with her favourite flower that she would sometimes come home from the market with accompanied by the biggest smile on his face, and just taking it in as much as he could...like he was a man in love. I even found a bottle of the same perfume that she used under his bed when I took the initiative to clean his room as much as I could. But he had been avoiding me ever since the Nam's found out what I had done to Yeon last time and i was in my final trimester of my pregnancy, and I was getting sicker than I ever have done in my entire life.

I felt every part of my body freeze when I saw that; my hand started shaking and I felt my anger rise. I loved him first, I took care of him for years and I tried to do so even more behind his back. I washed his clothes and bedding myself by hand and I tried to fill it up with some nice scents from the market that were pretty expensive. I didn't let anybody clean our quarters bedroom, which was one of the smallest rooms in the home and I got on my hands and knees and I puts much of my love into everything I did. But seeing the bottle under his bedding...and one of her ribbons that she had lost maybe a year or two ago and she tried to look over the whole mansion trying to find it. And now I realised when he had that smirk on his face...no, that was an understatement. His smile went as deep as I had ever seen as he watched her trying find it in some sort of panic. I remembered he stayed pretty close to her that day...then that meant what I saw...I also remembered him standing too close to her at one time and I could have sworn that I saw him leaning in and smelling her hair without her realising it the whole time...

I took the ribbon into my hands and I couldn't help but to notice how worn out it was...I really had no idea what he was doing to it, but whatever it was he must have done it for hours. I pulled it towards my face and I smelt the perfume he had sprayed on it. The smell was so strong that I began to retch the minute I inhaled it. Anger started to rise in me again and before I knew it I had to vent out all of the emotions I had been suppressing for years now and I threw the bottle against the room where it had shattered into pieces. I wanted to run to my room and break down but before I could I found myself face to face with Young Master who looked like he wanted to strangle me on the spot. But how could he even think of doing that? I was the one who saw him first as a little boy who was scared to be here and left on his own. I was the one who tried to approach him and be his friend and take care of him, but he always acted as if he was allergic to me or something. And I was completely sick of him keeping such a big distance between us. I just wanted to be with the one person that I felt any sort of connection with during my lonely childhood, it happened to other maids , so why not myself? Why was i failing this simple chore of seduction so badly?

"You...!" "Why! Why do you treat me like this? For her? For that disabled unwanted girl, you are fighting everyone who has taken care of you and..." "Taken care of me? Taken care of me! Where? Here? In the Nam mansion? Is that supposed to be some kind of a sick joke?" "It is true that I have been your company for years now! I am the only one who looks after you! Are you really telling me that...after all of these years you have never felt anything for me at all!" "My god, I knew that everyone in this home was delusional just like my father, but I didn't know it was to this extent. What in god's name are you trying to suggest? What makes you think that I even want you or any servant as a chambermaid?" "Well...you need to have children someday, and..." "Listen, you are only staying here until you give birth to your bastard and that is it. And believe me, I am fully aware that I am a bastard that everyone looks down on, but even I think I deserve better than an old maid who can't even do her job properly. From now on, banish all thoughts of me inside your tiny little mind, because I already belong to somebody else." "Who do you belong to? That kisaeng that you stalk in the market place? That girl hates you and she knows it; if you keep getting close to her then she wouldn't hesitate to kill you to relieve herself of her anger that she has for you!" "I NEVER SAID IT WAS HER!" "Then who do you mean?" "I could not care less about you and how you feel! All of my life, I was the only one who cared about myself and I had to damned near raise myself. But now...now I have someone who loves me, who takes care of me, who notices me! I am not loosing that, not for anything." "Don't...please do not tell me, that of all of the woman in this nation that you are choosing that...that disabled penniless girl? The one that you can't stop watching every second that you get? Is she the reason why you are rejecting me? How can you do this to me?"

I wanted to shake him right there and then if it brought him back into his senses. Who in this village didn't know about this girl and her fits? Who didn't ridicule her for it publicly? Who didn't make comments about her when they could just to humiliate her? But now that she lost her memory and finally knew how to wear makeup, the young master who was the most handsomest man in our entire village was now falling for her? And pretty deeply as well; the way he spoke about her, anyone would think that they had been courting for years already. Even now when I just mentioned her name, the usually short-tempered young master looked like he had finally attained peace. "She...she isn't the same girl that she used to be, she isn't anywhere near it. Never in my life have I come across such as intelligent and wise woman, and she has never had any schooling at all. The way she walks, talks, smiles, and just looks at me...and she is doing it all for me. Because she still likes me, even when she cannot remember who I am in her life. That surely has to be a sign...she is just waiting for me to be free of my father. And then..." "...and then what? What about her brother who is defying death every single day to collect her? Are you going to lie to her forever?"

That wiped the smile off of his face, but it was also my first time witnessing the Young Master being sad for someone other than himself, and I had never seen him spare what little emotions he had for someone else before. "I...I will tell Yeon the truth once I get her out of here and I will reunite her with her brother myself. But before I do I...I will do something, anything to bind her to me, so she can never leave me like everyone else has in my life, including Hwi himself." "What can you possibly do? Court her? Marry her? Rape her? There is nothing that you can..." "Really? And who say that I cannot do any of those things? Who can stop me?" "You will...you want to...to marry her? Are you even...attracted to her like..." "Yeon is beautiful, and she doesn't even know it. She is the most beautiful woman that I have ever seen, and I am the one that she loves. Me. So I will keep her by my side, even if I have to do all of the things that you just mentioned." "All? Even..." "Yes, all of it." "Will you really do that to your cousin?" "My cousin? What are you talking about? I meant the kisaeng..."