Forbidden Desire | sunsun

9

[tw // references and mentions of abuse]

Sunoo sits next to Wonyoung in the courtyard, a plate of sliced fruit between them. Wonyoung is wearing a long floral dress cinched at the waist with a silk ribbon and an oversized sun hat on top of her head. In her hands is a bundle of daisies — small, delicate hands weaving the flowers together as she stares down into her lap. Sunoo doesn't look at her, instead gazing out at the fountain where white water cascades gently down moss-stained rock. The atmosphere is gentle and untarnished, warmed by the glow of the setting sun creeping over the tops of the trees on the horizon.

"A while ago, I left a letter for you on the foot of the staircase," Wonyoung says to him to pierce the silence, holding up her chain of daisies into the sunlight. The white blooms are fresh now, but Sunoo knows by morning they'll be withered and brown. Wonyoung's face is impassive and smooth — a kaleidoscope of reds and oranges from the sun lighting across her complexion.

"Did you? I don't remember ever seeing it," Sunoo says mindlessly, picking at the grass until it stains his fingertips an emerald green. Sitting outside next to Wonyoung is different from how it was with Sunghoon — an unmountable distance between them that Sunoo has grown to accept. Expects it to remain there for the rest of his life in a bland, tolerable way.

"That's because you never did," Wonyoung explains, eerily calm. There's little that seems to faze her, and Sunoo wonders if there's anything that truly disturbs her or if she's as impenetrable as one of the paintings on the wall. "I left it there to see if Sunghoon would tamper with it. I'd noticed he was looking at me differently. He looked at you differently too."

"A test then," Sunoo nods. "You wanted to test him."

"I suppose," Wonyoung agrees. "It was more curiosity than anything, at that point."

"How did he look at me differently?" Part of Sunoo is curious about the answer, while the rest of him aches at any memory of his old servant. He knows he's expected to ask another question though, and it must be destiny that his tongue always finds a way to place Sunghoon's name on it.

Wonyoung forgets her daisy chain, leaning her head back to look at the sky and pulling one of the barrettes down through her wispy, long hair. "Like a friend, maybe. Or someone dear to him."

"He wasn't supposed to, I'm guessing," Sunoo says.

Wonyoung hums. "Not like that. Not in the way that I saw."

It's quiet between them for a moment — broken only by the soft whisper of the wind catching the edge of the leaves in the overgrown peach trees lining the courtyard. They fill the air with their summery sweetness, barrelling towards becoming perfectly ripe. Sunoo doesn't let the words settle inside of him — too afraid to think about what they might mean. What they mean shouldn't matter anyway, since everything between him and Sunghoon has ended.

If there was anything at all to begin with.

"What did he do with the letter?" Sunoo asks.

"I don't know," Wonyoung says, and her face twists like it upsets her. The idea of not knowing. She must not be used to it. "All I know is that he never gave it to you. If he had, I know you would have said something to me."

Sunoo turns to look at her, surveying the intelligent sharpness of her eyes and the prideful pout of her mouth. He'd never seen it in anyone other than Sunghoon before, and the resemblance makes something inside of him ache. "How can you be sure of that?"