↱SEMPITERNAL↲ ⇾seongjoong⇽

forty two

105th year of Joseon, Mokpo.

"He fell ill on the day following my birthday," he says.

He is sitting in the library with his parents.

He has washed and changed into his old clothes.

They hold the scent of home.

"We had eaten with the villagers - a few farmers, the village head, Master Gil - and he fell ill soon after. Everything he ate, I had tested first, so he thought he did not take to the food well, and he thought he needed some rest and tea and he would recover in a day or two. I believed it, too. I took care of him for two days, tasted the tea and the soup that he would be served myself. All of it stayed in his sight till I returned. He got better. The villagers prayed for his health, and he was well enough to stand before them and receive their well wishes. The villagers, they called him King."

His father remains quiet for a long moment, studying the grain of the wooden floor.

His mother remains still.

Hongjoong knows the weight of what he just said.

He knows that his father has never said a word that is disloyal to the crown.

Did not protest when Seongkyungwan was desecrated, not a word when the other princes were murdered, silent even when Seonghwa was sent to the south.

His faith unshakeable in the integrity of the crown, or perhaps he was duty bound.

His mother wipes fresh tears.

She is duty bound, too.

"Go on," he says.

"A physician came into town," Hongjoong says.

"A Master Ok. The farmers vouched for him, the servants too. He gave him medicine, and that, too, I tested before he drank a drop of it. His color bettered for a day, but by evening he was ill again. He promised he would recover, that his constitution was good, and his blood was good, but I thought he wasn't getting better. It had already been nearly a week, perhaps six days, and I thought even the most severe of such illness must recede by such time. And he was so weak, he hadn't the life in him to get out of bed."

His throat tightens again, and he clears it and keeps speaking.

He has to speak of it all.

He needs someone else to know what it was like.

"I thought perhaps Master Ok was incompetent, and I stopped a group of herb collectors from the Yeongam apothecary and asked them how they would treat a condition like his, and they said they would ask their old masters and write to me, and within three days I had my answer. Master Ok was right. I asked him to come live in our home and care for him, and he did. But the very next day I wrote home. I hoped perhaps Master Song would know more, know something to save him. Because - father, it was like..."

He needs a moment to breathe.

To wipe the image from his mind again.