Crimson Legend || Hwarang

CH.2: Unrequited

Once the afternoon tea with the Queen was over, Chunhwa decided to take a walk around the palace in order to familiarize herself once again with the area. As she, her maid, and the palace servants who were in service to her passed by the throne room, her feet automatically stopped— as if it was glued on the floor.

"My Lady, is there something wrong?" her personal maid asks, looking at her in concern.

Chunhwa took her time answering and continued to stare at the doors that led towards the King's throne. She turned her head towards her maid, a soft smile adorning her lips.

"Damyi, would you and the palace servants stay here for a while?" she asks— her voice a little louder in order for the other servants to hear her as well.

Damyi bows at her. "Of course, M'lady."

Chunhwa then turned her head back again towards the doors and she stepped forward, her hands moving on its own accord as she open the doors.

'I...'

As Chunhwa stepped inside, she took in everything her eyes rested upon. Her eyes travelled from the ceilings, to the pillars, and even to the floors as her feet led her towards the center of the room. Her eyes then travelled upwards the set of stairs and stopped in the empty throne in front of her.

'...Am in love with the faceless King.'

Memories started to flood her mind— memories of her and a boy named Sam Maekjong, whose face she can't even remember.

Chunhwa thinks about how she met him when she was just four years old and he was five— an inseparable friendship immediately blossoming towards the two of them. She also became friends with Princess Sookmyung a year later. The three of them acting as if they were like real siblings as the time passes by.

However, a few months later, a taint in their happy friendship of three happened.

Wolseong Palace was under attacked— and Chunhwa witnessed her grandfather took his last breath in her small arms. Suddenly, hands roughly grabbed her little frame, carrying her towards an unknown direction while she trashed uselessly in the stranger's arms, crying in fear. The stranger however, turned out to be Pa Oh— the King's right hand commandant.

Pa Oh carried her over a certain room and inside as they enter, they found Queen Ji Soo— one hand tightly gripping a sword pointed towards anyone who would dare enter the room, most especially the assassins, and the other holding her son, keeping him close to her.

Everything went in a blur after that.

The next moment Chunhwa wakes up, she was lying in a futon bed and Sam Maekjong was on the other side of the room sleeping soundly. She sees Pa Oh entering the room with a tray of food for her with a wide grin— two years and a half had already passed.

Three months later during winter, while Chunhwa was playing a snowball fight with Maekjong, her nose started to bleed. All of them paid no mind about the incident and assumed that it was just because of the weather. However, a week after, Chunhwa started coughing blood and couldn't eat. Pa Oh had immediately sent a letter towards the Palace about the incident asking for help.

Not three days after, Chunhwa finds herself looking back from a small window at her childhood friend and the man whom she saw as a father as they see her off with a solemn expression— their figures getting smaller and smaller as the horse carriage she is riding takes her off to the North.