.thirty.
Minji was taken off guard by his proposal. This was Wang Eun, the tenth prince of Goryeo who hated her from the start. He also knew that she liked Jung and that they intended to get married in three years. It made no sense for him to suddenly spring a question like that onto her now. The fifteen year old laughed and blurted the first thing that popped into her mind, given that it was also not a very well thought out response. "You've clearly had way too much to drink and you don't know what you're saying." She said to him, trying to get up while simultaneously trying to pull him up to standing as well.
But he shook his head, suddenly going serious. "You're wrong. I do know what I'm saying."
Minji had been trying to pull him back on his feet, but at that point she was just about ready to give up. Plopping herself back onto the ground next to him, she heaved a sigh. Her response took about a minute to find its way out. This time she was trying to find the right words to ask him. "Why would you pick me? You clearly have hated me from the very first moment we met." She recalled back to the very first day, at the private baths. The two had been fighting and bickering with each other ever since.
He shook his head drunkenly, pointing out matter of factly, as though his words would help the situation. "I didn't hate you when we were kids. I just thought you were annoying." Her eyes which had been shining with a glint of hope dropped instantly when she heard what he had to say.
Her eyes narrowed into thin slits, forming into a glare. Although when she thought about it, that wasn't her that he found annoying back then. That had been the real Park Hak Soon. On the negative side, that meant that if he was annoyed with her as kids, he really started disliking her until after she arrived in Goryeo. Minji wasn't sure how she felt about that. She always had mixed feelings about the tenth prince. Sometimes she liked him, sometimes she didn't. Right now she was actually in a point in time where she liked him.
"I still don't understand." She gave a shrug of her shoulders.
"Well, I can't marry Soo-yah." He informed as he gave his explanation. His voice sounding slurred still, but every bit like there was some actual thought behind it. Like he had thought about it before. "She was going to be the King's wife until she scarred herself. And I don't want to marry some woman I've never met before. If I have to get married, I'd rather marry someone I know. That's why I will pick you when his majesty asks me again if I've thought about it."
"So I'm your second choice." She said, and then added sarcastically. "Thanks."
One person coming into her mind, she pointed out a flaw in his plan.
"What about Jung?" She asked. "He and I are getting married when we turn eighteen. I can't marry two princes."
That was true. In Goryeo, a prince or a royal could have many wives if he wanted to. But a woman could only marry one man. If Minji were to marry Eun, she wouldn't be able to marry Jung later on.
"Jung-ah will find someone else." Eun said sadly, his head dropping low in something of embarrassment. "I can't. No one will want to marry me. The best I can do is get his majesty to force a friend to marry me."
The tenth prince had always felt like his brothers were better than him. He wasn't the brightest of them, he wasn't as tall as any of them, he wasn't good at martial arts like Jung and Han, or he wasn't good at music like Baek-ah. He wasn't good at academics like Wook. He could never quite find something that he was good at. His older brothers Yo and Won constantly teased him growing up because he didn't understand many things. But he never concerned himself about it until now because he was happy. Now that he would have to marry, he thought no woman in Goryeo would want him.
