Posted originally on the Archive_of_Our_Own at https://archiveofourown.org/
works/12575112.
  Rating:
      Explicit
  Archive Warning:
      Underage
  Category:
      F/F, F/M, Multi
  Fandom:
      달의_연인-보보경심_려_|_Moon_Lovers:_Scarlet_Heart_Ryeo_(TV)
  Relationship:
      Park_Soon_Duk/Wang_Eun_|_Tenth_Prince, Park_Soon_Duk/Hae_Soo_|_Go_Ha_Jin,
      Hae_Soo_|_Go_Ha_Jin/Park_Soon_Duk/Wang_Eun_|_Tenth_Prince, Hae_Soo_|_Go
      Ha_Jin/Wang_Eun_|_Tenth_Prince
  Character:
      Park_Soon_Duk, Wang_Eun_|_Tenth_Prince, Hae_Soo_|_Go_Ha_Jin, Wang_Mu_|
      Crown_Prince
  Additional Tags:
      Alternate_Universe_-_Canon_Divergence, Explicit_Sexual_Content, Threesome
      -_F/F/M, Slow_Burn
  Stats:
      Published: 2017-10-31 Words: 10270
****** if stars get lonely ******
by akingdomofunicorns
Summary
     She can’t help but think that the stars won’t forgive her for trying
     to grasp far more than her hand can hold.
The girl is pretty, she supposes, much prettier than herself. Her skin looks as
soft as morning dew, and she’d never wear a bearskin, and of course her hands
look weak and fragile. She is a dainty thing, a pretty thing, a small thing.
She’d had a sister like her, once upon a time, and she married the King. It is
only right, then, that a girl like Hae Soo marries a prince. The Prince loves
the other girl anyway and despises the sight of her just on principle. Her life
would be easier if she asked for another husband, more mature, perhaps kinder,
someone who’d feel honoured to have her, or that at least would feign as much.
She deserves that, at least —some courtesy, a single smile, soft eyes to give
her confidence before the vows take place.
She gets nothing of that, but she did ask for him, so she bears it with as much
dignity as she can. After the wedding, when she’s curled on the floor, she
wonders if her selfishness will be punished. She can’t help but think that the
stars won’t forgive her for trying to grasp far more than her hand can hold.
===============================================================================
Marital life is a quiet, childish affair. They dine in the silence of
uncertainty, never knowing what to say to each other, neither of them older
than sixteen.
I chose a boy, she thinks, while she watches him play with his sleeves in
between bites. He’s a young boy, made out of dreams and memories, built like a
sandcastle on the shore. She’s loved him ever since she was but a wisp of a
girl, chubby-cheeked like a little rabbit. He gave her a flower ring, called
her pretty, made her feel like a pearl. He was sweet back then, she’s not so
sure she can love him now.
===============================================================================
He’s in love with the maid, that she can see. And instead she’s chained him to
her ankle with iron shackles that took the form of a King’s order and wedding
vows. What is done is done, though, and there’s nothing else for her to do
except wait for him to forget the girl.
You never forgot your first love, darling, there’s a voice that whispers in her
ear. And what a horrible thought it is, now.
===============================================================================
She hears the whimpers, and at first she thinks they’re her own; she cries
herself to sleep often, these days. But she’s breathing fine, she realizes, and
she’s just now coming awake from a peaceful sleep. No, it’s her husband, it
must be, she’d recognize him anywhere.
So she pushes the covers aside and ties a robe around her waist before she pads
across the room to the door. She hesitates for a second, long enough to hear
him hiccup, and then she steels herself and crosses the door to the hallway.
They haven’t shared a room since their wedding night and she feels the panic
creeping up her throat. They are, after all, children playing at house.
His voice is raspy when he tells her to go away, but she doesn’t listen, she
never does. She opens his door slowly, giving him time to get used to the idea
of her, and she holds her breath for a second, as she sees him come into focus
before her eyes. He’s curled on the floor like a small child, long hair unbound
and inky black. She wishes she could take him in her arms, comfort him, cherish
him; she would, if he just let her. Instead, he looks angrily at her and tries
to clean his face with his sleeve. The skin on his cheeks is red and blotchy,
and his nose is running. She still loves him.
“I told you to go away, I don’t want to see you!”
His tears hurt more than his words, and she lets herself fall before him. She
tries to tuck his hand in hers, but he jumps back and crawls back to the bed,
turning away and giving her his back.
“Why are you crying?” she tries again, expecting the silence that follows. He
never disappoints, it seems. She could try to climb on the bed with him and hug
him from behind, she is stronger than him, after all, but the soft hiccups that
follow her question keep her rooted in her spot.
If she could, she’d rip her heart off from her chest. She doesn’t need it
anyway.
“Go away.”
“No. You need someone, and I’m your wife. I’m your wife. You can talk to me.
Please, talk to me.”
She has the line of his shoulders committed to memory. When he chokes, she
feels it to her core. It is true that love hurts, that it tears you open, that
it ruins your life. And she loves him, she’s not sure how many times she has
that same thought a day, but she loves him. She even annoys herself.
“I love her,” he whispers, a phlegmatic noise that chills her.
“I know... Doesn’t it kill you?”
The rustling of sheets alerts her to his movements, and when she looks up,
she’s face to face with his eyes. He has pretty eyelashes. He is a pretty boy,
isn’t he?
“Do you love me?” he asks. His voice is soft for the very first time, and he
looks like the boy that used to make her heart flutter. She rests her head on
the mattress, cheek against the silken linens, heart on her throat.
“I don’t remember a time when I wasn’t in love with you.”
“I’m sorry.”
He has a heart, after all. She doesn’t, not anymore.
===============================================================================
“You can marry her, you know,” she tells him over dinner. It’s just the two of
them and his favourite games. They’re young, and innocent, and lonely.
He looks up from his rice, eyes bright like the moon, and scowls.
“She doesn’t want me,” he says, and it hurts more than she cares to admit, to
know that he already asked.
===============================================================================
It’s funny, she thinks, that they both look for her when they visit the Palace.
She’s still as pretty as ever, with her long black hair and soft smile.
She leaves her husband be and wanders around the grounds hoping against all
odds that when they return home, he’ll be softer, and loving, and warm.
They walk into each other and once more the bile piles in her mouth, burning
her throat. She loathes the girl, she really does. Every time she’s before her,
she feels so inadequate, and her brain goes numb. Pretty women have that effect
on her. She hates them, she envies them.
“Your Highness.”
“Marry him.” The words are out of her mouth before she can think it through,
and she watches as Hae Soo’s eyes widen. Her pink little mouth is open, and her
tongue peeks through, glistening with moisture. Her heart burns. “Marry my
husband, be his second wife. He loves you. He loves you so much.”
“I can’t marry him. I—”
“He cries himself to sleep. He loves you.”
“I’m sorry, my lady.”
She turns around like a hurricane, and she’s off running, her long braid coiled
like a snake around her head. But she’s not giving up, not now, not when she’s
determined to make him happy. She’s faster and taller, her legs are longer, and
she catches up to her quickly.
“Then help me. I want him to love me, to forget about you.”
“He’ll forget about me soon, don’t you think? He already hates me.”
“The more he loves you, the more he hates you. I think he sometimes forgets I
exist. It kills me.”
“You’re young still, he’ll come around.” Her voice is as soft as a bird’s, and
she looks at ease in the Palace, like she was born to be a princess.
“You don’t understand, my husband is in love with you!” There’s an
uncomfortable silence that stretches for quite some time, and suddenly the
laughter bubbles in her chest like a thousand butterflies fluttering around
inside her lungs, and it spills before she can stop it. Hae Soo laughs with
her, both hysterical and broken, and when the Court Lady takes her wrist and
pulls at her, she’s warm and lovely, her soul yellow like a sunray, her skin
soft like a petal.
There’s a small island on the Palace grounds, surrounded by tall weeds and the
darkest water.
“I come here to think,” she says, and Sun Duk understands. Sometimes, she, too,
would like a special place where she could hide, somewhere only hers. The walls
are thin on her husband’s property, and she doesn’t want to cry in her room,
less the servants, or worse, Wang Eun, hear her sobs. But Hae Soo doesn’t have
to worry, not with the small oasis she’s found. “We could be friends, you know.
I think you could use a friend.”
“I’ve never had a girlfriend before. There aren’t many women on the
battlefield.”
“We could both use a friend. I like you, my lady, I really do. Don’t you think
hating me is too tiresome?”
There’s somethingabout this girl, something lovely, something soft. She wants
to hate her even more. Hae Soo laughs when she sees her scowl, and brings both
palms to her cheeks. Her hands are rougher than they seem, and it makes her
feel better, for some reason.
“Let’s be friends, my lady. It’ll be fun.”
===============================================================================
“Be colder,” Hae Soo said, and so Sun Duk tries, and she tries really hard.
When he comes to play, she scowls and sneers. When he asks for something, she
rolls her eyes. It’s harder than it seems, not smiling, but the more she denies
him, the more he seems to seek her. It’s not out of love, that much she can
tell, but sorrow breeds companionship, and they’re the saddest pair of them
all.
She has a system, you see: he asks, she denies him, he asks, she denies him, he
asks, she caves. She tries to smile just like Hae Soo, all soft and ladylike.
At least she gets him to look at her. Beggars can’t be choosers, right?
===============================================================================
“What did you do, that he still loves you so?” There are cherry blossoms over
their head, and the sunlight seeps through the pink and hits them in the
eyelids. Spring suits Hae Soo, it makes her cheeks turn peachy pink, it makes
her hair look even darker, and there’s a stripe of white on the crown of her
head where the light hits her in a soft caress.
Hae Soo giggles. She is often giggling, often lovely.
“I gave him a good beating. He was being a prick.”
Sun Duk sits up to look at her properly. What a lovely doll, she thinks, with
her hair full of petals.
“He is a prince!” But she can’t stop the laughter that escapes her, and soon
they’re both laughing like children.
“I know, right? I think the King almost had my head, at some point.”
“What an odd boy, my husband is.”
“Have you kissed him yet?” Hae Soo asks suddenly. They both know that no, they
haven’t shared a kiss, but it seems Hae Soo is actually waiting for her answer.
“He hates me. Isn’t that answer enough?”
“He hates me, too,” Hae Soo says, and adds, “Your husband is an idiot, darling.
But you should still kiss him, you deserve that, at least.”
“I’m not kissing him! That’s outrageous. And wanton. And he hates me.”
“He can hate you all he wants, he is not a child anymore, is he? Soon he will
have to come to terms with the fact that you are husband and wife, and that
sometimes one might want to kiss the other.”
“All he ever wants to do is play.”
“Have you offered to kiss him?”
“On our wedding night, he made me sleep on the floor. He thinks I’m annoying
and ugly and probably disgusting. I scared him the first time we saw each
other, and up until our wedding day, he’d run away from me. I made a mistake
when I married him, and even knowing that I don’t regret it. Aren’t I pathetic?
I’ll take his scorn and his hatred if that means I can wake up every morning
and break our fast together. I like seeing his face first thing in the morning,
he is always so sleepy.”
“You really are pathetic,” Hae Soo says, and reaches for Sun Duk. She can feel
her heart speed up when Hae Soo’s fingers tuck a lock of her hair behind her
ear, and for some unknown reason, her skin ignites, flames licking at her
chest. They’re face to face, hair unbound and unkempt, cherry blossoms crowning
them like wood nymphs out of some western fairytale. She’s travelled, she’s
heard all sort of stories. “You have freckles,” Hae Soo murmurs softly, not
quite speaking to her.
“Sorry?”
“On your nose,” she clarifies, smiling, “you have freckles on your nose.”
“Oh,” she says, bringing one hand to touch the offending skin. Her skin is
perpetually tanned, naturally darker than a proper lady’s, but Hae Soo says it
in such a way that it doesn’t make her feel like an ugly duckling. It’s just a
fact: she’s tanned, she has freckles and she can easily beat Prince Jung in a
fight. Not very ladylike, but Hae Soo thinks that just makes her fun.
“They’re lovely,” Hae Soo adds, perhaps fearing having offended her. “They make
you look younger, even more innocent than you already are. I wish I had
freckles, sometimes.” She taps her on the nose and once again lets herself fall
on the grass, hair spreading out underneath her like a fan. “You’re pretty, my
lady, don’t let that lovable idiot tell you otherwise.”
===============================================================================
They miss each other. She can tell by the way Eun’s breathing stops every time
she mentions Hae Soo, or how her friend always looks over Sun Duk’s shoulder,
waiting to see if the prince follows her. Her husband will never admit it, of
course, but when she asks, Hae Soo smiles sadly and rests her head on her
shoulder, knowing Sun Duk will understand her without any words needed. They
get each other, despite their differences and their rocky start. She is her
first real friend, and when she tells her so, Hae Soo looks at her for a whole
minute before she tears up and hugs her tightly to her chest. It’s strange,
since Hae Soo is so small, but sometimes she feels like she’s a thousand years
old and her soul is tainted sepia. Warmth seeps from her every pore, and she
thinks she might even love her. She hated her, not so long ago.
===============================================================================
“Do you hate me?” The question takes her by surprise and she has to check if
it’s really Wang Eun the one standing by her chair. “You’ve been awfully mean
to me, lately.”
“How so?” she’s ‘playing it cool’, whatever that means.
“You never want to play anymore, and I feel so lonely. What good are you as a
wife, if you won’t keep me company?”
“We can play now, if you’re up to it.” Here’s the thing she’s learnt about her
husband: he’s hot and cold, yes and no, and he wants what he can’t have. When
she offers herself up to him, flushed and nervous, hoping that he’ll take her
back, feeling guilty for the game she was playing, he hesitates for a second
and tries to seem indifferent. It touches something within her, that part that
exists purely to remember his face.
“Alright,” he says finally, half smiling, “I’m bored anyway.”
He is just an overgrown child. But he seems glad to have her back, and just for
that, she’ll forgive him anything.
===============================================================================
Hae Soo is too busy to entertain her often, and that’s how she realizes that
there is a strange pain in her chest whenever she doesn’t see her. She dreams
of her, too, and more specifically, she dreams of what she might taste like.
Peaches, probably, and ripe persimmons. She dreams of running her fingers
through her hair and biting the tender skin of her neck. They are strange
dreams, improper ones, and she wakes up sweating and terrified, and with a dull
ache between her legs that makes her sick to the stomach.
She plays with Wang Eun often, in those days, and lets her heart fill with
warmth at the sight of him laughing at something she says. She loves him,
always has, always will.
When she sees Hae Soo again —and she can’t help it, she misses her like a
stomachache—, she waits for her smile with baited breath, and it’s not until
she delivers that she can finally breathe again. If there is anything as
beautiful as the image of Hae Soo throwing her shoulders back as she flashes
her pearly whites in unadulterated delight, Sun Duk has yet to find it. It
scares her to death, much more than the ringing of steel in a real battlefield.
===============================================================================
“Do you still love Hae Soo?”
They are sitting in one of the gardens, under the shade of the biggest tree.
They’ve both escaped their duties, and they’ve found companionship in their
hideout. They’ve tried training, but they are both too lazy to move in the
blistering sun, and besides, they shouldn’t expose themselves so much, lest
they end up looking like peasant children.
“Do you still love me?”
“Fair enough.”
They’re older now, and it will soon mark a year since they married. She turned
six-and-ten last week, and he is just a few months shy of turning seven-and-
ten. Her mother-in-law has already started asking for grandchildren, and it
makes her feel even less a princess than she already is. Hae Soo says that she
shouldn’t have to have kids just now, that she has time, and that she is far
too young, but everyone expects her to produce an heir sooner rather than
later, and it gives her palpitations, just thinking about it.
“You’re a bit different now,” Wang Eun says, wiping the sweat from his brow.
“Ever since you and she became friends, you’ve changed somehow.”
“I’m bolder. Perhaps braver.”
“And colder, too. You used to follow me around. I miss that.”
“You were my only friend, back then,” she says, and from his grimace she can
tell that they both know that that’s not true. It doesn’t matter, really; he’s
her husband and she loves him, and what is past is past.
===============================================================================
There’s a bathtub full of milk in her chambers, and Hae Soo is just standing
there, smiling softly, flowers blooming through her hair.
“Come, my lady,” she says, and takes a step forward without knowing. There is
pressure in the air between them, and soon the fissures will appear and their
skin will burst. She’s not quite sure what the outcome will be, or why they’ve
reached this point, but she can feel the tension raising her skin into
goosebumps, filling in her lungs.
She can’t breathe properly, not when Hae Soo’s fingers are so close to her skin
and she can feel the ghost of her touch as she tucks at the laces of her dress,
as she undresses her with experienced hands and leads her to the bath.
“Why the milk?”
“It will make your skin softer, and brighter. Ancient princesses used to bath
in milk, you see. And you are a princess, after all, are you not? Come on, get
inside, I’ll leave you nice and ready for your husband.”
Hae Soo brushes her hair in scented oils as her skin soaks, and when she’s done
she sits beside the bathtub on the floor, her lovely cheek resting on the
wooden edge, one hand dipped inside.
“How long must I stay like this?”
“Just a bit more. What, am I boring you? Would you rather be with someone else?
Your husband, perhaps?”
She makes to laugh, but Hae Soo is completely serious, and suddenly the air is
charged again, charged with something unknown, something she can’t quite place,
but that leaves her skin on fire.
“I…”
Hae Soo sits up and leans forward just so, until her long hair brushes the
milk, until they’re nose to nose and their breath is one. Her eyes are even
darker from up close, is the first thing she thinks, and then, her lips are
soft. She doesn’t know how, or why, but they’re pressing their lips against
each other, and her heart is burning, beating wildly against her ribcage. Hae
Soo takes her cheeks between her hands, presses her face even closer. The moan
that comes from the back of her throat is embarrassing, but Hae Soo gives a
moan of her own, and she can’t think anymore.
She’s naked in the bathtub, but Hae Soo is fully clothed when she climbs inside
with her and straddles her legs, never detaching from her mouth. They kiss, and
kiss, and kiss… and the world seems about to end when they finally come up for
a mouthful of air. Hae Soo is flushed, and Sun Duk guesses she is too.
“Why…? I…”
She doesn’t quite know what to say, not when the girl on top of her is close to
crying, with the tips of her dark hair dripping wet and her lips swollen,
slightly parted.
She’s younger than she seems, and tougher, too, her skin thick like iron, soft
as silk. There’s an acute pain in her chest whenever she looks at her, Sun Duk
realizes. She feels too much, and can express too little.
“You have a lovely mouth,” Hae Soo whispers, her voice cracking at the end,
“lovely eyes, lovely hands. He will come to love you… in the end. Let’s get you
dressed and pampered. It is his birthday, after all.”
===============================================================================
Hae Soo is absent from the celebrations. It is not fit for a maid to attend a
prince’s birthday. But she should be there, Sun Dunk thinks, because her
husband loves her, and she does too. She loves her like she loves autumn leaves
layered underneath her naked feet, like lying in a bed of wildflowers
underneath the warm sunshine, like ladybugs crawling over her arms and legs,
tickling her sensitive skin. She loves her in the same soft, innocent, selfish
way she loves Eun. She loves her, and it might break her.
===============================================================================
She tries to cry in silence, but her heart is ripped in two and all her
thoughts are made of wet paper and cutting glass. Her husband finds her sitting
before by pond, watching the brightly coloured koi fish twist and turn through
tear clogged eyes. She must make a terrible sight, but there is no strength
left in her bones, not after a whole night of playing pretend.
No, she was content with the moon for company, but she’ll take him too, if he
offers. He is all she can truly have.
“Did you not enjoy the banquet? My mother tells me you hardly tasted anything.”
“I was feeling restless.”
If he is going to ignore her tears, then so will she. This life she’s living is
a mess.
“You smell nice, I noticed before.”
He is much like a clueless puppy, and she can’t help but laugh through her
tears.
“The Lady Hae Soo pampered me, she bathed me in milk and rubbed my hair and
body in scented oils.”
“How can you be her friend, knowing that I love her?” he asks, his voice
strained, almost embarrassed.
“Because I’ve never had a friend, and she makes me feel loved. My sister… you
must know her, she is married to the King. Well, she left home when I was but a
child, and ever since I have been alone. My father took me with him to the
front, and I grew up alone and ostracized, always laughed at, and so I learnt
to be strong. I trained and trained until I became a warrior, and then I
trained some more, just so I could be the best. But Hae Soo… She makes me
strong from within. And she makes me feel warm, truly warm, she even chases
away the pain from loving you.”
She sees him move from the corner of her eye, sees him raise his hand, sees his
fingers reach out to her. But it’s not until he is wiping away her tears with
his fingertips that she truly registers what is happening, and her heart jumps
to her throat. Sometimes she dreams that he tolerates her, even likes her. It
is not too late for them, she thinks, and Hae Soo must have known that. But the
truth is she loves that girl, and she might love her back, and so she must make
a choice.
Not now, though, not yet.
“Does it truly hurt this much, loving me?”
“It is a lonely existence, being your wife.”
“We play often.”
“And even then I can tell you love her. She is never far from your mind.”
“I don’t hate you anymore,” he whispers, collecting the tears from her cheeks
but never retreating his fingers.
“Even hate is closer to love than indifference is.”
“I’m not indifferent, I think I like you now. I enjoy your company.”
Blood freezes in her veins, and her heart bursts like a shooting star.
“I… I am glad, Your Highness.”
“I think,” he stammers, and then clears his throat. “I think I might come to
really like you, if I tried.”
It is good news, she knows, but she doesn’t have time to process it, because he
takes her neck in his hands and turns her just so, and suddenly his lips are on
her lips, and his tongue is a wet intruder in her mouth. She feels herself
ignite, every pore in her body catch afire as he devours her. It is good news,
she knows, but as they kiss, and they kiss, and they kiss, she hears a
different set of lips whispering her name, like a ghost.
===============================================================================
He looks like starlight in the morning.
It shocks her to her core.
===============================================================================
He stretches like a kitten under the sunlight, the curve of his back obscene
and tantalizing like cream for the taking. She is a weak woman, in love with
marble and stone. And her body craves, and craves, and craves for more.
===============================================================================
It hurts even after the deed is done, a dull and throbbing kind of pain that
never ceases to annoy her, that reminds her that she is, by all standards, a
woman now. She didn’t know it would be like that, and when she sees the blood
on the sheets she panics and flees.
Hae Soo laughs with bitter tears in her eyes, and tends to her with careful and
nimble fingers, applying hot towels between her legs, making her blush like the
maiden she can no longer claim to be.
“Life will be better now, sweetling, you’ll see. Life will be much better.”
But that’s a lie, because in the month that follows the King falls ill and the
whole nation waits with baited breath for his heart to succumb to exhaustion.
The Princes gather in the castle, and the maids work overtime with the royal
doctors to bring the King back to life. Sun Duk waits, and waits, confined
within the walls of her husband’s property, but her heart is elsewhere, and she
finally convinces her mother-in-law to let her leave the palace and run to him.
And her. It’s been a long time coming, this tear in her heart.
Wang Eun takes her hand when they reunite and there’s sunshine in her heart
despite the smell of death in the air. They lie together against silken linens,
and she’s reminded of that one first time besides the pond, the stars twinkling
over the koi fish. His hair is long, his eyes are bright, and his mouth is warm
against her breasts. Her skin feels like it’s on fire, and they stand on the
edge of something dangerous, something akin to pleasure, but close to pain.
It’s nothing like they say in the songs, no gentle loving, no lingering gazes.
He’s inside her and she’s close to bursting, not quite sure of what she needs,
feeling him everywhere at once. When he spills his seed inside her and kisses
her on the mouth, she feels like crying, despite the love that blooms in her
heart.
===============================================================================
She wakes up to his lips on her neck.
“I left a mark,” he says when he sees she’s awake, “does it hurt?”
She feels sleepy, and perhaps that’s where her boldness comes from, for she
answers him with a kiss, and her tongue searches for his immediately. They’re
naked under the covers, and her skin rises in goosebumps all over when he
places his hands on her back and rolls her over him. She can feel his heartbeat
against her skin, or perhaps it’s her own. All she knows is that this moment in
time is, perhaps, the one she’ll cherish the most until the day she dies.
===============================================================================
Intimacy is quite strange to her, but Wang Eun enjoys it like he enjoys most of
his games. He fumbles and loses his rhythm, and he seems rather clumsy whenever
he puts his hands on her, but his mouth seems talented enough to make her
crumble in a mere few seconds. Hae Soo dies of laughter when she tells her
that, one fine day of the last stages of summer, and they hide on the island.
“Has he ever…?” and what follows is so outrageous that Sun Duk has half a heart
to storm out of there and never come back. But she’s felt Wang Eun’s mouth on
her neck and on her breasts, and she thinks… she feels… Well, curiosity is
painfully acute.
Hae Soo lays her back over the pink wildflowers that grow in one of the steep
hills of the island and works through the countless layers that make up her
royal attire. The sky is a clear shade of blue and the sun is yellow like the
purest gold; the air tastes of anticipation.
Her breathing is hot when it reaches her skin. Somewhere in her mind her
mother’s voice is screaming “Cuckoldry!”, but her brain is filled with fog and
honey, and she just can’t stop. Not when there’s a chance she might just die if
the girl crouching between her thighs stops. It is torture, sweet,
unadulterated, soul-consuming torture, and she longs for the release she knows
is coming. Her toes curl, her fingers flex, and her back arches off the floor,
and yet she still can’t find it. Hae Soo holds onto her breast over her dress,
and Sun Duk feels like she’s hanging from a very, very thin cord. And yet
nothing is enough. She clenches her thighs together, desperate for something
that she can’t quite reach, and holds back a moan. There’s an unquenched thirst
in her bones, and she’s mad with lust.
And suddenly Hae Soo takes her fingers to the pearl at the apex of her thighs,
and there it is, a wave she rides with the undulation of her hips, a clash that
has her shaking and thrashing. She hears screams, and she doesn’t realise they
are her own until Hae Soo’s hands cover her mouth. The only thing she can do in
response is bite the meaty flesh of her palm and hope death does them apart.
===============================================================================
They return to the Palace in quiet content. Wang Eun is waiting for them by the
heavy doors. His face is pale with death, and Sun Duk’s breath catches in her
throat.
“We don’t know if he will last through the night.”
Both girls —they are both still girls, after all— take a step forward, their
souls aching for the sweetest boy they know. It’s an instinctive thing,
wrapping their arms around him, both their bodies still warm from love-making.
They must cut a ridiculous picture, three kids heartbroken and afraid, and Hae
Soo must think the same because she urges them both inside and brews them tea
to calm the nerves.
Sun Duk feels weird with her thighs still wet from before, but there’s no time
to think about it, not when her husband takes her hand in his and rests his
head on her shoulder, seeking her skin with his. She wants to kiss him, clench
her thighs around him, make him feel good, make him feel better. It hurts like
a stomachache. Her mother died when she was far too young to have any memories
of her, but she remembers the sister she lost to cholics and fevers, and how
the mourning tore them in half. Her older sister married the King a fortnight
later, and her father took her to war before the bride was gone for the
bedding.
She never sees Hae Soo leave their chambers, but she wakes up at midnight to an
empty room and a Court Lady’s voice seeping through the door. Wang Eun is quick
to rise and he leaves her behind faster than she can understand what is
happening. But she remembers suddenly, in a flash, that the King might just be
dead for all she knows, and she follows her husband through the hallways.
The air smells of sickness, and death tastes of decay and rotten teeth. There’s
been incense burning day and night for almost two moons now, and it smells so
sweet it makes her gag.
The Princes stand in line like little figurines. The King still lives, but not
for long. They don’t let her in and she must wait with the maids and the
guards. In times like this she misses her father and his quiet reassurance, and
the steady heartbeat that used to lull her to sleep when she was but a wisp of
a girl.
They announce his death in the wee hours of dawn. They bow to the new King when
the corpse is still warm.
Lady Oh is quick to follow. She has been sick for long now, but the physician
says that what really ended her is her broken heart. There were rumours for
quite a long time, she learns, that they had been lovers, the King and the
maid, and they resurface now for a moment, before the Queen Dowager puts an end
to them with leather and blood. Sun Duk sees the gossipers and their bloody
backs making the walk of shame through town, and keeps her mouth shut.
Her husband’s brother —the King now, she mustn’t forget— is a gentle soul. They
say he was a soldier and a warrior, but Sun Duk only sees a scholar. He spends
his time with the Royal Astronomer, so much so that Sun Duk wonders what the
stars have yet to tell them.
The Nation endures, and so must they.
===============================================================================
Her husband takes it better than she expected. When asked, he says he mourns a
King, not a father. It makes her wonder. They don’t really talk, do they? All
they do is play, and pamper themselves, and lie together.
“Didn’t you love your father?” she asks him while he’s folding towels into the
loveliest shapes. She feels daring by asking him that while they’re still
living in the Royal Palace, but they are something, now —perhaps not truly
husband and wife, yet, but something is far better than nothing.
Wang Eun gives her a towel bunny and sets to make another shape, and she fears
he will never answer her, but he starts talking before she can feign she didn’t
ask him anything.
“I suppose I did, and I do. But I love my mother and her family more. I’d be
very sad if something were to happen to them. I’d cry.”
“You always cry.”
“That’s whining,” he laughs. She loves it when she makes him laugh. It’s not
often, but it happens more and more frequently. She might make him love her, in
the end, just like Hae Soo predicted. And it might break her apart.
===============================================================================
It’s not the first time a wife falls in love with someone else, but she feels
like it might be the first time a wife falls in love with another woman.
Figures she would be the first.
The Prince promotes Hae Soo to Lady Oh’s position, despite her being so young.
The Princes all love her, not just her husband, and they gather around her to
celebrate. Wang Eun wants to go to her, she can tell, but he looks at her
first, a pained look that brings a soft smile to her lips. He is a sweet kid,
still.
She takes his hand, guides him herself to where she stands, and before she can
think it through she finds herself hugging her in front of everyone else. She
wonders if they suspect. She doesn’t think they do, it is too outrageous. She
feels her husband’s arm around her, knows that he is hugging Hae Soo too, and
she just wishes to have them both like this forever, all to herself. It would
be a dream come true, if an unlikely one.
They share tea at her request. It is an uncomfortable affair, in the beginning.
Her husband fidgets and stammers, and Hae Soo remains quiet like a mouse. The
soft, cheerful girl is much changed from when they met —she lives in silences
and courtesies, and Sun Duk has to fuck the sound out of her mouth.
“How is married life treating you?” Hae Soo asks, suppressing a flinch at the
awkward question. Sun Duk can tell, because she has the line of her shoulders
committed to memory by now.
“It’s fun, we play a lot. We talk sometimes about important things, and feel
all tingly and warm afterwards.”
“We miss you something fierce,” Sun Duk adds, knowing it will rattle the
Prince.
He scoffs and jumps out of his seat.
“I do not!” but the tips of his ears are red with blood, and neither believe
him.
“I miss you, too. Come visit me often, you both, you are my favourites, after
all.”
Wang Eun’s lip quivers so lightly that Sun Duk would have missed it, had she
not been so attuned to his every expression. She takes his hand, laces their
fingers together and kisses the soft, pale knuckles. How does is make Hae Soo
feel, she wonders, not daring to look her in the eye.
“You are both lovely,” the maid says, something soft on the edges of her words,
of her mouth. Sun Duk looks at her from the corner of her eyes, sees that she
is smiling her most sincere smile, and feels her chest tighten. She loves this
woman, and she loves this man, and Wang Eun is just oblivious to it, head over
heels still for Hae Soo, still confused about Sun Duk.
Wang Eun means to protest, but at the last minute his eyes soften and he
tightens his hold on her hand. “I suppose we are.”
===============================================================================
All they ever do together is drink tea. It might be that they feel unsure
still, that they look at each other in the eye and can taste all the unsaid
secrets still on their tongues. It might be that love has made them into fools,
or that they long for each other, all three of them, and they don’t know how to
word it. Sun Duk feels so much older, now, so much wiser. She was a duckling
waddling through the castle, lost and afraid and ignorant, naive like a child.
She wasa child. And now she looks at them both, both holding a crucial piece of
her heart, and she thinks she might’ve outgrown them. They are remarkable human
beings, but so is she.
“I am a lucky girl, to have you both in my life,” she says, taking a chance.
Wang Eun averts his eyes, blushing a guilty crimson. Yes, her husband loves Hae
Soo still, that much is obvious. And Hae Soo? Her ears are tainted pink, and
Sun Duk wonders whether they now speak to each other when she is not around.
She hopes they do, it would make her life so much easier. It would make her
dreams so much more attainable.
“Weare the lucky ones, Your Highness.” She can tell she means it, Hae Soo is a
transparent woman.
“We are,” Wang Eun agrees, and it rings a shock through her spine. She can’t
help but look up from the green surface of her tea in the most unladylike
fashion she can manage, and finds her husband staring at her with the softest
gaze she has ever seen. It burns her soul, the tips of her fingers, the apex of
her thighs. She has to press her fingernails against the soft flesh of her
palms to keep herself from moaning out loud.
And off to the side, Hae Soo bites her bottom lip and looks at them through
hooded eyes.
===============================================================================
“He will like it very much,” Hae Soo tells her, and Sun Duk can’t stop hearing
these words in her head as she kisses him, and kisses him, and kisses him. He
makes the softest of sounds, come just from the base of his throat, and she
thinks she might just melt. She kisses the bump on his neck, the hollow of his
collarbone, the protruding bones that stick underneath peach coloured skin. And
she kisses, and kisses, and kisses. Down she goes, across lean muscle and warm
flesh, and his breath hitches when she doesn’t stop. She can feel him trembling
underneath her tongue, and he sounds scared when he asks her for what she is
doing.
“I’m making you feel good,” she says, and then she adds, “you will like it very
much.”
She feels unsure at first, on edge whenever the nervousness that radiates from
his body reaches her, but then he moans, really moans, and the tension snaps in
her belly. She takes him in her mouth, careful with her teeth, just like Hae
Soo told her, and lets her tongue travel over the venous skin. It feels strange
to her, but it must feel very good for him, because he fists a handful of her
hair and gasps her name, and suddenly it feels very good for her, too. He can’t
stop saying her name, and she might just die from pleasure. She never knew
power could feel like that. His body sings for her. She feels him tense, hears
him warn her, but she sucks a little harder, presses her hand against the base,
and he spills himself with a groan, making her toes curl.
She longs to have him between her thighs, but when she looks up at him her
heart stops at the look on his face, at the honey dripping from his gaze, and
she crawls forward to kiss him despite the tangy taste lingering on her lips.
When he whispers her name against her lips like a secret, her heart bursts like
ripe fruit hitting the ground.
===============================================================================
The King’s wife looks like an ornament, but she is anything but —Hae Soo calls
her a trophy wife, but that does not make any sense, for she is not the spoils
of any war, but a foreign princess shrouded in silk and gold. She does not
scheme, she does not rage, she does not weep when they send the Princess away,
and neither does she wail at the stillborn prince she bears. She tends to her
scrolls and counts the stars in the sky, and makes sure her children can read
and write and sing and dance and fight. She kisses their little heads, sends
them off to their tutors, and holes herself up within the library to stare at
inkpots and brushes. They say she writes poetry and bawdy novels and reads them
to peasant children and country folk, they say she walks barefoot underneath
her many silks.
She is eccentric in a different way than Hae Soo, even scarier. But the Queen
requests her presence often, as she is a Princess herself, now, and so they
drink their tea and follow their courtsies and hope time speeds its crawl. In
the Queen’s presence she feels unfit to be a princess, even more so than when
she is with Hae Soo. How she hates the stuffy walls of the Palace, the pins and
needles in her hair, the heavy jewelry against her skin.
She is trying to discreetly scratch a spot where the jewelry pulls at her hair
when Hae Soo enters with the tray in hand. She serves them the tea in practised
silence, her hands graceful and nimble, and Sun Duk must concentrate really
hard on her own hands to keep herself from looking at her for too long. She
looks beautiful, like she always does, with her soft skin and her jet black
hair braided in a thick plait.
The Queen drinks first, and Sun Duk follows her lead, grateful for the
distraction so she doesn’t have to keep talking about the weather and their
pearls and the King’s latest poem, anymore. She knows naught of pearls or
poetry, and the day is crisp and blue. She thinks it might be the day when the
leaves start turning, autumn is coming late this year.
There’s a crash. It startles her so much that she spills her tea, and when she
sees Hae Soo on the floor, her face pale and broken porcelain around her, she
jumps off her seat and runs to her, unaware of the cup she’s just let fall on
the floor. The Queen screams something, but she can’t hear it over the blood
rushing through her ears. Hae Soo looks like a wilting flower.
Two guards come rushing in and push her back, and they take Hae Soo away before
she can protest. For all her training, for all the death she’s witnessed on the
battlefield besides her father, she has never felt more useless. She is
paralyzed. The Queen puts her cold hands on her shoulders and whispers that the
maid will be alright, but Sun Duk can’t stop shaking, and she excuses herself
to run to Hae Soo’s side.
Wang Eun is already there, pacing by her door, but Sun Duk doesn’t have time to
wonder how he found out, and neither does she have the time to dwell on the
guilty look that crosses his face when he sees her, because when she tries to
enter Hae Soo’s chambers a mean looking nurse stops her.
Wang Eun pulls her back, and she could fight him, she could fight her, she is
stronger than all of them here, but strength leaves her body and she collapses
against his chest.
“She will be alright, she is being taken care of,” he says, but his voice
trembles at the end, and she feels the tears well up in her eyes.
They wait, hands clasped together and knuckles white from the pressure. When
the doctor tells them that her heart is sick, Sun Duk sits down on the floor
and lets herself weep right then and there, not caring who sees her, or who
deems her weak. She can’t breathe, and she can’t think, and her grief feels
heavy and cold on her stomach.
“She is awake,” her husband says against her ear, but she can’t see her like
that, she can’t let herself be weak when Hae Soo most needs her. But she can’t
stop crying. She reaches for her own heart, feels it beat strong and healthy
against her ribcage, and she wants to rip it off, make it silent.
She runs away, not because she is a coward, but because she is a warrior, and
she needs to find her strength before going into battle. Wang Eun might not
understand, but Hae Soo is far smarter than him, and she will.
When she returns, her husband and her lover are holding hands.
“I will not be able to bear any children, not if I want to survive,” she hears
Hae Soo lament.
“My children, ourchildren,” she corrects, “will be your children, too.” Wang
Eun might not understand, not yet, but Hae Soo does, and she smiles.
===============================================================================
The feast is splendid, fit for the King’s daughter. They are sending the poor
thing off to wed a Prince of Shi Jin, but while the Princess looks like she
might start crying at any moment, the guests are enjoying themselves. She asks
for iced honey milk because rice wine makes her stomach queasy, and she sips at
her choice while people watching. She isn’t much for mingling, and she’s seated
with all the other wives, who are much better at being princesses than she is.
She keeps meaning to ask Hae Soo for help, but they are always busy with each
other’s lips when they meet, and she forgets.
The guests are happy, but she feels the air rattle with spilled blood. She
reaches for the dagger at her boot, but the maids took it off her when they
dressed her in silk and slippers. She is still faster than anyone. She jumps
over the table, knowing full well that danger is approaching, she breaks one of
the posts holding the paper lanterns and she pounces. The King’s guards think
she is attacking him, and they unsheathe their swords. At her back, the
colorful lanterns collapse to the ground, and the guests scream. She can hear
her name spilling from her husband’s throat, but she is focused on the King.
She is calm, collected. She deflects the dagger that comes for him with her
makeshift weapon, and when the dark figures fall from the sky like ravens, she
is ready.
Her body sings and yearns for a real battle. All she has is a wooden stick, but
her father trained her well. She gives them hell. She is as good as any men;
no, she is far better. She disarms one of them with a flick of her wrist, slits
someone’s throat, and she is trying to retrieve her dagger from a man’s eye
socket when she once again tastes death on the tip of her tongue.
She doesn’t have time to think it through, she tackles the King, thinks that
she will be charged with treason, and blood blooms from her shoulder. She
doesn’t feel the pain, excitement dulls it, but she knows there is a blade
piercing through her. She doesn’t have time to fight back, or to save the King,
because her adversary removes the steel from her shoulder and stars fill her
eyelids.
She is gone, fallen into darkness. Someone, in the distance, screams her name.
===============================================================================
She wakes to Wang Eun’s worried face. She feels lost, drugged, but she is
conscious enough to feel pain at the sight of him anything but happy. The pain
becomes physical when she tries to reach for him. Fire courses through her
veins straight to the wound on her shoulder, and she cries out loud, startling
him. Pain is like music, it sings and it sings and it sings, it vibrates
through her nerves like notes flowing together, and it makes her come apart.
“Shh,” her husband says, tears clogging his vision, “you’ll be fine, sweetling,
you’ll see.”
She blacks out, too weak to answer him.
When she comes to her senses again, her husband is sleeping beside her, and Hae
Soo is wiping sweat from her brow. Wang Eun must feel her fidget, because he
wakes immediately, and presses his mouth to hers before she can say anything.
It’s a wet kiss, wet from his tears, she realizes midway through, and his fear
seeps through her body down to her core.
“That was stupid!” is the first thing he says to her, when they part for air.
Her lungs are burning, but he seems fine and dandy, apart from the dark circles
under his eyes and the rats’ nest that sits on top of his head. She wishes to
caress his cheek, but the ache is ever present, so she settles for a sheepish
smile instead.
“You shouldn’t be so brave all the time,” he continues. Hae Soo smiles at them
both, worry still creasing her forehead, too.
“I’m sorry I was such a bother,” Sun Duk says, knowing full well that they will
protest.
“He ran towards you,” Hae Soo later tells her, when Wang Eun is off to fetch
her some oils, “and was almost cut in half by the man who wounded you. I
thought my heart would crumble at the sight.” She says it in such a way that it
makes Sun Duk wonder.
===============================================================================
She is still weak when they announce the King’s presence, but she manages to
disentangle herself from the linens and kneel before he even has time to cross
the threshold. She cannot forget that she tackledhim to the ground, that she
touched him as if he were naught but a peasant, and that is treason. Let the
punishment fit the crime.
But the King is kindhearted, a part of her whispers, a part that sounds
suspiciously like her good-natured husband. Hope trickles in her heart when the
King sits down before her, hope that is warm, and painful, and suffocating. She
knows she should have died defending her King, it would have made both their
lives easier, and it would have brought glory to her family. But her wound is
not even that serious, and the doctors say it will heal fast.
He is solemn, his back straight and his face weathered from battle and age. And
when he says, “The Nation is indebted to you,” she feels like she might faint.
Gods be good, but she will live , and she is desperate for survival. She can
feel the blood rushing through her veins, the throbbing pain on her shoulder,
every scar on her body, the ghost of loving fingers touching her soul, making
her body surrender. She is alive.
“Allow me to grant you a wish, as a sign of my eternal gratitude.” He is not
very kingly, never has been. He is a warrior, and a scholar, and a man afraid
of dying. And formalities don’t seem to matter to him when faced with death.
“There is nothing I wish for myself, Your Majesty. I was doing my duty, and I
would do it again.”
He smiles, a bitter thing.
“Perhaps you will have to do it again, my dear good-sister. There will be many
more assassination attempts against my person; the time might come when the
Nation will ask you to surrender your life for mine. Allow me, then, to grant
you a wish for someone else, if you are already satisfied.”
I am weak, she thinks, as the words leave her mouth before she has a mind to
stop them. She is weak, and wanton, and selfish. She should be ashamed, but she
only feels anticipation. She averts her gaze before speaking.
“I would only ask of you, Your Majesty, that you release the Lady Hae Soo from
her duties as a Court Lady, and that you allow my husband to take her as a
second wife.”
“Is that what your heart truly desires?”
Yes, more than anything.
“I fear my husband’s heart will never rest until he marries her.”
“You are a lovely wife, aren’t you, dear?” He says it as if she were a cute
puppy he must humour, but there’s also an edge to his words, something
dangerous and yearning. When she dares to look at him, he smiles a crooked
smile, a knowingsmile.
“Yes, it seems us nobles always wish for what we can’t have. It is somewhat
funny, I think, that I can give you what even I can’t give myself. We will have
a beautiful wedding with a beautiful bride, and I will toast to your health,
and to your happiness.”
He gets up to leave, not letting her say anything, but before he disappears out
the other side of the door, he adds, “Yes, the stars work in mysterious ways,
but I suppose we must make the best of it.”
And he is gone.
===============================================================================
“You never asked me if this is what I wanted!”
“I know it is what you want, but most importantly it is what Iwant! I love her,
too! I love you both!”
===============================================================================
Unexpectedly, it is Wang Eun who feels the most uncomfortable of the three of
them. But Hae Soo takes them both to her island, to her haven, and feeds them
the earliest persimmons that grow inside the stronghold being consumed by the
wilderness. She makes them laugh, sings for them, strokes their hair and kisses
their eyelids. She looks like a spirit from the woods.
“I love you,” Sun Duk tells her, and she waits with bated breath for her
response.
“I love you, too,” and looking at the prince, she adds, “and it will not take
me that long to love you, too, my little Prince.”
Wang Eun blushes scarlet and sits to nibble at his fruit, but Sun Duk feels
daring, and they are to be married, after all. She kisses those pink, lovely
lips, lets her mouth slant over hers. She is older, now, perhaps braver. And
she is full of love, to give and to receive.
Hae Soo pushes her gently away and guides her to where Wang Eun is watching
them, eyes rapt with desire. Hae Soo beckons him to sit beside her, right in
front of Sun Duk.
“I will teach you something, sweetling,” says Hae Soo, “something that will
make her feel stars explode underneath her skin. Come here,” and together they
make her lie down on the cold soil.
She knows what is about to happen, she can feel the anticipation coiling in her
belly. Hae Soo pushes all the silken skirts back and Sun Duk can’t take her
eyes away from the sight before her, right between her thighs.
“Kiss her,” and it startles Sun Duk, to hear her own voice utter those words.
“Kiss her,” she repeats, dying to see their lips collide at last. Wang Eun
seems unsure, but his whole body is trembling, and he reaches for her neck. He
has small, dainty hands, but they look huge against Hae Soo’s petite form. And
when he presses his lips against Hae Soo’s, Sun Duk knows it is sealed. She can
hear their ragged breathing over the rustling of the leaves and she moans, low
and guttural, like an animal. Wang Eun detaches himself from Hae Soo to look at
her, really look at her, with her spread legs and her inner thighs glistening
from arousal.
“Now you kiss her,” Hae Soo whispers, a breathy sound that sends chills down
Sun Duk’s spine.
She caves under his lips, her back arching off the ground, her thighs shaking
as he feasts on her. Hae Soo is whispering sweet nothings into his ear, telling
him to go slower, and faster, to be gentle, to be firm, don’t stop, don’t stop,
sweetling, it’ll make her feel so good, just like that.
Sun Duk is on the verge of falling. She doesn’t want to let go, not yet, but
Hae Soo whispers something in his ear, her hand resting just atop his head,
guiding him, and he sucks on her just right, and her world comes crashing down
into a million little pieces. She could die right now, she really could.
Wang Eun looks mystified, but Hae Soo giggles and blows cold air on her heated
skin, once again leaving her breathless and empty and hypersensitive, her flesh
swollen and burning, her soul numb. She falls apart again, and the moan that
comes from her throat is something primal, something wild.
Wang Eun smiles, satisfied with himself, smiling like the cat that ate the
cream, and Hae Soo crashes her lips to his, tasting the remnants of her juices
that have stuck to his tongue.
This new life of hers feels like a dream. Joy blooms in her heart like spring
roses. Autumn is coming to an end, soon the first snows will cover the land.
They are still children playing at house, but loneliness has given way to
bliss, and gods be good, but they are happy.  
===============================================================================
Hae Soo looks lovely in her wedding dress. She looks even better with the dress
pooling at her feet.  
They both like it when she is in the middle. Wang Eun rests his head on her
breast, his breath hitting her nipple, and she tangles her fingers in his hair,
the inky strands silky against her skin. Hae Soo tangles their legs together,
and she likes to lace their fingers together. Love making is strange, sometimes
difficult, but afterwards they both nuzzle her neck, kissing and sucking and
leaving purple bruises in their wake.
“You did well in marrying her,” she tells them when they’re both half asleep,
and Wang Eun purrs. Hae Soo snores softly, finally succumbing to sleep, and in
searching for a better position her hand falls on Sun Duk’s belly. It makes her
warm to know that the child growing inside of her will grow up feeling loved
and cherished. She takes Wang Eun’s hand, guides it until it is resting on her
belly, too, and lets the wind outside their chambers lull her to sleep.
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