He sees it. Sees in the vast sea of people, of dark hair and porcelain skin. That familiar dark brown eyes sparking his frozen heart alive.

He pushes his way through the crowd, evades the ever-changing tide of people heading in multiple directions.

He keeps himself going, adds more strength. Allows the commoners, nobles, vagrants to curse him. One hand outstretches, and he could almost touch her. He’s pulled back into the crowd, by a rude grasp. Vulgarity thrown at him, for So’s absentminded shove.

So cuts the vagrant with a glare that could extinguish willpowers of even the mightiest warriors. The dirtied vagabond drops to his knees, pleads forgiveness for his insolence, and So catches the whiff of fresh pee from him.

He sees it again. Dashes at her direction. Her name slips out from his lips, as though his throat finally releases her name after all these years. She turns to face him.

Her face’s perfect, as the day he’d seen her. That upturned of her lips, fills his chest with warmth.

“Your Majesty,” she says, half-whispers.

“I’ve found you,” is all he could croak out, rubs his eyes twice, blinking the tears threatening to fall, “Hae Su,” he finishes, like it’s the most sacred name his lips ever utter.   

She bows, so low that his hands stops her from going any further. And the end of his lips quirks up a smile – it feels strange on his face, this smile. He’d buried this smile so long in his heart, it takes him moments to get the right smile back.

“No, it’s just ‘prince’ to you,” he replies, soft.

She shakes her head, “No. You are the emperor now, I shall give my respects accordingly.”

And he lets her. When she’s all done, tilts her chin to get a better look at him. She raises a hand close to his face, her fingertips hovers just above his scar all hidden with the paint she made once upon a time.

“My, you’re still handsome as ever,” she breathes out, her eyes barely blinks.

He doesn’t blink either. Afraid that she’s just nothing but a figment of his imagination. He’s so close to pressing his face against her palm, she drops her hand to her sides. Her eyes darting in all directions, before she refocuses her gaze on him.

“And you’re still the fairest my eyes chanced upon,” stumbles loosely from his lips. Heat spreads from his neck, all the way to his face.

 She chuckles a tender one and says, “Your Majesty, flattery isn’t your strong suit. You’ve changed.”

“No, I am still the same boy you saw in the gardens,” he argues, “You looked the same, Su.”

“No, I don’t, Your Majesty,” she sighs, red lips bearing a smile that doesn’t reach up to her eyes, “take a good look at me.”

And he does. His eyes narrows, scrutinise her for the first time. Her hair’s all bundled above the nape of her neck. Her clothes, they’re not of a uniform of the maids he’d seen in Empress Jeongdeok’s household. Her fingers clasping over a basket so tight, her knuckles turns white. The smile’s all faded, and she bites her lower lip, waiting and nervous.

“I’m the emperor,” he repeats, louder. But his voice’s all cracked. His steel-like resolve collapsing into a thousand broken pieces. His lips parts open, his mind’s racing to say something (anything), his throat locks all the words sitting at the edge of his tongue.   

“It’s too late for that, Your Majesty,” Su murmurs. There’s no anger. There’s no regret. It’s not the tone he’d hoped to hear. Not the tone he spends the last five years dreaming as he yearns for her warmth to heat his bed.

She carries on, says the words would shatter his heart for the second time, “For I’m a married woman now.” She says it, like it’s a fact. Because it is. So can never turn the tides of time, rides into the past. One where he’s a prince. One where she’s a maid.

They are stranded on an island of certainty, not a boat in sight. So cannot run from the reality he’s in. She’s not his. Not anymore.

He doesn’t voices the ‘how’, but she picks it up all the same. As she has done so, years before. And perhaps continually so.

“The Empress released me from the service after two years ago,” her sight falls on a young child playing not far from where they stand, face to face. Her gaze’s one would bestow at a child so precious, the one So never received from his mother.  

She’s no longer that servant girl he remembers. She’s a mother. She’s a wife. Could he do that? Take her away from her child and her husband. All because he needs (wants) her more.

“I didn’t return to the Hae Clan, went to Naju instead. Met a musician. Much like your brother,” she continues, dropping formalities. Speaks to him, like she’s a girl of the commons and he’s a boy without a drop of royal blood. “No,” a short shake of her head, “he’s better than Baek Ah.” Another chuckle, she hushes, “Don’t tell Baek Ah I said that.”

“He cannot recite any poems. He flees at the first sight of danger. He doesn’t like to frown. He’s too shy to say what he thinks, makes a fool out of himself,” she continues, more to herself than to him.

Then the coast between them slips into an awkward silence, he pushes himself to speak anyway, tilts his head backward, and closes his eyes.

 “How’s your—” So still can’t bear to say the word, like it will only cements the reality he’s trying to reject.

“—he’s a nice man, Your Majesty,” she stresses the two last words, nurtures the rift into a larger river that cuts two lands, “a simple, but wonderful man.”

“That’s good to hear,” he lies smoothly, turns his back at her. He takes one step forward. Another. And another. Until they’re far apart, but the air carries his voice to her all the same, “Goodbye, Su.”

He tosses a glance over his shoulders, permits one last smile on his face. 

She mirrors that smile on her face, makes a deep bow, “Farewell, Your Majesty.”

His feet carries him through paths he paid no heed to. His ears muting any sound that he knows he should be hearing. Children playing to his right, he sees them exchanging joyous grins – the peals of delight missing. Just that faint buzzing of denial ringing in his ears.  

His shoes caked with mud. His robe drenched in fleeting rain. He thinks he lost a ring (or was it a hairpin?) or two, somewhere. Right foot front, left foot next.

He walks, dazed weights on his mind, playing in a never-ending loop. A soldier strides towards his direction, his brows furrow with concern. His mouth opens and closes, but So hears nothing of a word the soldier mumbles.

So clasps his fingers around the metal armour, jerks the soldier closer, catches the glint of his sword’s hilt and seizes the sword. So pushes the soldier hard, that he falls flat on his back. He doesn’t spare a glance, keeps his eyes ahead, staring into the blurry distance.

He walks, underneath the darkened skies, until he reaches the garden. The garden, only a singular gardener has the privilege of tending.

He hacks, slashes, and slices. The trees, the flowers, and the shrubs.

A patch of flowers, once mere seeds before Su weaves magic into its roots and stems, now blossoms wondrously.

Meticulously trimmed to perfection, as though it’s meant to be a shrine or sort. It was a shrine, until it wasn’t.

He stomps, with his full weight aided by persistent fury. Until each petal, each flower lies beneath his feet all broken, crumpled. Damaged. His nose catches the scent of wet metal of red. Blood trickles onto the soil from his freshly cut hands. He pushes the pain away, tosses his blade as far as his strength would allow him.

His throat lets loose a wolfish howl (mourns for the future he lost). He howls and howls, until his throat’s dry and raw with pain. His legs can no longer supports his weight, and down he goes like a boneless snake.

The anger’s still pulsating within him. He pummels his fists against the ground, hard as though he’s beating his chest, his legs are not of use, but his hands are still working. He thinks, his fingers might have cracked underneath that massive force. He rolls over, lies flat on his back. Blinks away the remaining tears, but it does not leave him, streams down the sides of his face instead.

He fought harder than he did in Shinju, to be the emperor, to have the power and to covet the one person he ever loved more than mother herself.

He’s Gwangjong. Not Wang So. He’s Goryeo’s emperor. Not the wolf dog of Shinju.

And …

And here he is, the emperor with a lover long moved on with her life.

The blood he shed, the blood his fingers soaked in day and night, the blood that streaks against his face time and time again.

All for naught. How pathetic.

He stays there, with his eyes closed. Doesn’t move (he can’t move, more likely), until the fatigue replaces anger, and slumber replaces anger.