𝐄𝐗𝐈𝐋𝐄 ♕ 𝐉𝐀𝐍𝐆 𝐖𝐎𝐎𝐊

𝗰𝗵𝗮𝗽𝘁𝗲𝗿 𝗳𝗼𝗿𝘁𝘆-𝘀𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗻

Jang Gang looked war-weary and injured. He resembled the shadow of the man Gaeun had run into at a tavern in the Outer District of Yeol. Her team had been celebrating a mission, and they'd all been young, drunk, and foolish. Kota had gotten into an argument with Jang Gang—only none of them knew who he was. In their eyes, the man had been a penniless traveller, floating from tavern to tavern. Kota, hot-blooded and brattish as he was, had continued to raise his voice while Jang Gang responded in a calm monotone.

Somebody had reached for their weapons first. Mako, embarrassed that a thirteen-year-old boy under his supervision had picked a fight with a grown man, had pleaded with Gaeun to put an end to it. Dizzy with power burning in her veins, Gaeun had spun Jang Gang around by the shoulder and landed a swift sucker punch to his nose. She'd knocked him out but also gotten her team banned from the establishment over their rowdiness.

Gaeun had never thought twice about that man until now.

Despite the delicate beauty Wook had inherited from his mother, Gaeun saw the striking similarities between him and his father—the sharp glint in their narrowed eyes, the plane of their foreheads, and the shape of their faces. They shared the same stubborn eagerness to know and learn, the trait of Jang Gang that had led to all of Wook's sufferings.

Stiffly, Jang Gang turned, and Wook exhaled in a shallow burst. The older man bowed his head low. "Your Grace," he greeted. "We meet again."

"Under worsened circumstances," she replied.

Wook tilted his face towards her but refused to meet her eyes. "You've met him?" he asked curtly.

"In passing. I never knew who he was." Gaeun momentarily observed Jang Gang's now crooked nose, wishing she'd hit harder had she known who he was then.

"You have some nerve," Wook spat with vitriol, abandoning the respectful tone he'd been using. "Talking to me about vengeance and Cheonbukwan while hiding who you really are."

Jang Gang smiled haplessly. "Would you have stopped had you known my identity?" He asked, but they all knew the answer.

Wook's expression darkened, the simmering rage threatening to boil over. "I would rather lose myself to dark magic than look at you any longer," he replied, steady and pat on the beat. Without another word, he turned on his heel. "Stay," he said to Gaeun, not bothering to look back, "if you need to talk to him. I'll find us an inn."

Gaeun watched as Wook disappeared into the shadows of the village, gradually fading from view. The sight of him walking away, shoulders tense with anger, stirred something within her—a mixture of sadness and fury that threatened to overwhelm her. In a flash, they were ten and he was weeping under the scaffolding of the abandoned temple. They were fifteen, and he was slumped in the snow and sludge, constraining a string of curses. They were sixteen, and he pretended not to hear the slur whispered by a patron at Chwiseonru. He was twenty, and Gaeun was weeping against the welts on his back.

She trained her eyes on Jang Gang, who was still fixated on the path past her shoulder. There was a stretch of silence before he finally looked her in the eye and quietly asked, "How did the princess of Yeol end up marrying the only son of the Jang family?"

"Over a lie," she answered bluntly. Her fists shook with anger, and the words spilt out from her before she could even think, "If the patriarch of the Jang family wanted to atone for his sins, he should've stayed to protect his son. Instead, he chose to rack up his sins—"

Gaeun wanted each word to pierce him, to hurt him and make him miserable the way Wook had been for twenty years. But two decades of pain couldn't fit in the few moments she was willing to spare for this man. The brokenness on his face did little to earn him some semblance of absolution from her. The more Gaeun studied him, the more she could see the man the people of Daeho spoke of. The authority in him had diminished, and his broad shoulders were now hunched.